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STRENUOUS AMERICANS 










Brigham Young 






STRENUOUS 

AMERICANS 



R. F. DIBBLE 

\ \ 

1 \ 


. . who preeminently and distinctly em¬ 
body all that is most American in the American 
character. . . 

Theodore Roosevelt: The Strenuous Life. 




> 




BONI AND LIVERIGHT 

Publishers :: :: New York 







t- /T4 

.U Srf 


Copyright, 1923, by 

Boni and Liveright, Inc. 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


NOV 17 73 

©C1A759878 


'VO 1 



TO THE GREATEST 
LIVING BIOGRAPHER 




PREFACE 


Americans have commonly been too much engrossed 
in living to reflect much about life. As a conse¬ 
quence, although many books have been written about 
America’s most eminent sons and daughters, we have 
relatively few genuine biographies; for our biographers, 
also, have in most cases been strictly indigenous in 
temperament. Like the persons whose careers they 
record, they too have generally been representative 
specimens who illustrated the particular whims and 
foibles of a particular race, living in a particular na¬ 
tion, during a particular age. With distressing fre¬ 
quency, their literary efforts are characterized by lop¬ 
sided emphasis, by sprawling incoherence, by parochial 
banalities, and by maddening prolixity; above all, most 
of these authors have constantly employed a tone of 
tombstone panegyric. They have buried their subjects 
under heavy slabs of adulation—hardly less ponderous, 
and rarely more artistic, than the granite slabs that 
now mark the graves of those subjects. But these 
weighty tomes, whether single, twin or triple, have 
led to at least one happy result—almost nobody reads 
them. 

The dangers of brevity in biography are perhaps as 
many as are the dangers of length, of interminable 
facts that do not illuminate, of uninforming informa¬ 
tion. But in any case, short or long, biography must 
inevitably be far from perfect; for to trace the myriad 

ramifications of any personality is utterly impossible, 

7 . 


8 


PREFACE 


whether that personality be actual or fictitious. The 
masters of fiction, no less than the masters of biog¬ 
raphy, have always known this: the greatest creator 
of character, speaking through his most complex crea¬ 
tion, voices the eloquent despair he feels in attempting 
to show “how infinite in faculty” is the “paragon 
of animals”; and the greatest of biographers, appar¬ 
ently with genuine humility, prefaced his matchless 
work with the confession that it was “a presumptuous 
task.” 

Considerations of this sort I have tried to keep con¬ 
stantly in mind while writing these sketches. They are 
biased sketches, of course, for to write without bias is 
to write without selection; when selection enters, im¬ 
partiality perforce leaves. But in my material—in the 
seven typical Americans whom I have chosen from a 
hundred possibilities, and in the method of selection 
which I have used in portraying each of the seven— 
I have tried to be steadfastly candid and just; to be 
neither unduly captious nor unduly complimentary. 
Each one was supreme in his particular field during 
his day; each represents, better perhaps than any of 
his contemporaries in the same field, some distinctive 
and significant trait of his time. In outlining the lives 
of these Americans—a capitalist-politician, a notorious 
fugitive, a social reformer, an outstanding military 
figure, a hilarious showman, an industrial magnate, and 
a religious enthusiast—I have tried, so to speak, to 
view each one as though he were seated on some height; 
then I have paced round and round that height, in 
order to study him from every angle. At times I have 
stepped back for a considerable distance, at other 




PREFACE 


9 


times I have approached within arm’s length, so that 
my viewpoint might be neither too distant nor too near. 
And I hope that I have employed, to some extent, the 
same peculiar quality that these strenuous—and very 
differently strenuous—Americans held in common. 
In tracing their lives, I have strenuously endeavored 
to maintain a precise exposition, a scrupulous interpre¬ 
tation, a controlled but generous enthusiasm, and a 
cool-headed but warm-hearted detachment. 

In addition to the bibliography appended to each 
sketch, various newspapers have been consulted. The 
bibliographies make no pretense of being exhaustive; 
they list only the most informing sources to which ref¬ 
erences.have been made . 


R. F. D. 






















CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface . 7 

CHAPTER 

1. Jesse James. 15 

2. Admiral Dewey. 49 

3. Brigham Young. 144 

4. Frances E. Willard. 183 

5. James J. Hill. 257 

6. P. T. Barnum. 287 

7. Mark Hanna.336 










m 



/ 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Brigham Young . 

Jesse James . 
Admiral Dewey . 
Brigham Young . 
Frances E. Willard 
James J. Hill 
P. T. Barnum . 
Mark Hanna 
William McKinley 


Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 
. . 2 6 

• • 54 

. . 150 

. . 188- 

. . 260 

292 

• • 340 

• - 354 























STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


JESSE JAMES 

I 

The full life of Jesse James has never been written, 
and it never can be. A man—a sparsely documented 
yet definite personality—who bore that name was, it 
is true, born on September 5, 1847, and died on April 
3, 1882. But he left hardly a single authenticated 
account of himself, and the hundreds of records that 
were penned about him (mostly cheap-printed booklets 
with glaring yellow covers and crudely fictitious pic¬ 
tures, and newspaper items without number) have in 
great part disappeared. Of the few that arc still ex¬ 
tant there are two species: those oFidolizing relatives 
and mawkish hero-worshipers, or those of malignant 
enemies and pseudo-reformers who keenly realized the 
financial opportunities that lay in inverted hagiologies 
—books which made crime doubly odious by painting 
the blackest deeds of the criminal an even deeper black, 
and which proved their indubitable moral worth by 
juxtaposing one-tenth of virtue with nine-tenths of vice. 
The fabulists who wrote these tales manifest a curious 
parallelism in the presentation of their material; a 
parallelism that often extends even to the position of 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


16 


commas and abundant exclamation points. Unques¬ 
tionably, the enormous sale that their fabrications have 
had, and indeed still have, both at home and abroad, 
fully justifies the faith, as well as the business acumen, 
of the authors. Who can doubt that thousands of the 
youngsters who have been frightened into docility when 
parental wisdom has brandished the bogey of Jesse 
James over their terrified heads, or who have surrepti¬ 
tiously perused the bloody record of America’s greatest 
bandit with pounding pulse, with breathless rapidity, 
and with horrified delight, have heeded its solemn 
warnings and lived virtuously ever after? 

If, then, the facts about the life of this strange, 
shadowy individual are few, and if only those facts 
can be accepted as approximate truth which are attested 
by both his defamers and his panegyrists, even less is 
known concerning his personality, concerning, in a vital 
sense, his character. Was he a saint or a devil, a 
hero or a villain, a patriot or a rascal, a chivalrous 
knight or a dragon in human form—or was he an in¬ 
soluble compound of such opposites? Was he a brave 
soul fighting against an inauspicious destiny, or was 
he a low, scoundrelly chap, courageous to be sure, but 
repulsive and brutal, a murderer and a cutthroat who 
killed just for the fun of killing? He was—and he 
was not. The truth is that “Jesse James” never lived 
at all; he was a pure creation of the mind. He was 
born, he lived, he died, in the complex and far-reaching 
imagination of his race. He was America’s Odysseus, 
America’s Beowulf, America’s Robin Hood. He was 
the Mr. Impossibly Bad Man, the Mr. Impossibly 
Good Man, who has lived in every land and age. An 




JESSE JAMES 


17 


ordinary enough fellow in his mundane life, probably, 
like most of us; but it was his fortune to be trans¬ 
formed beyond recognition into the rogue-superman, 
the demon-god, of his time, and to be endowed with 
fantastic and chimerical qualities—to be a myth and 
a legend while he still lived in the flesh. 

This arresting, this fascinating person is, in truth, 
merely the embodiment of a superstitious belief. He 
is only an emblem, a symbolic name—but what a name 1 
It does not appear, to be sure, among the lists of 
America’s most important sons, it is not to be found 
in those respectable histories that purport to give a 
full account of all the forces that have touched her 
most deeply; and yet, from the standpoint of signifi¬ 
cantly concealed Influences upon the mind of youth, and 
not seldom of maturity, it is certainly of much greater 
importance than many names which have been scholas¬ 
tically honored and popularly forgotten. No, our hero 
has not yet received his due; and the reason therefor 
is not far to seek. Viewed in the light of stolid, 
plodding, tradition-loving respectability—and the nine¬ 
teenth century was sufficiently stolid, plodding, and 
tradition-loving—he is by no means a desirable 
national character. Under the circumstances, it has 
been thought that the most expedient thing to do was 
to be painstakingly oblivious of his existence, to treat 
him as poor relations are wont to be treated, and to 
push him into limbo as speedily as possible. 

This has been done—only by the elect minority. But 
the difficulty with this commendable policy lies in the 
fact that the profane folk-imagination which sur¬ 
rounded Jesse James with a nimbus of mingled glory 




i8 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


and odium was one of the vital elements of that cen¬ 
tury; that, even today, it still surrounds him and his 
spiritual bedfellows who, to the delight of the multi¬ 
tudes, swagger along their rascally ways in sensational 
fiction, in the cinema, and even in actual life. Can it 
be that the egregious morality of the last century pre¬ 
ferred not to face uncomfortable facts—specifically, 
the fact of Jesse James? Did it hate to admit that 
villainy sometimes has an alluring quality that virtue 
does not invariably possess, that the mass of people 
was attracted to this man because, whether partly or 
wholly bad, he was human, and that it was somewhat 
repelled by the most eminent representatives of the 
time because those beings were depicted, commonly 
with their own approbation, as just a little too good 
to be quite human? Whatever the explanation may 
be, the fact is clear: the king of American desperadoes 
was a more real and lively influence upon many—no 
one can say how many—Americans than were the 
Presidents in power during the sixteen years of his 
domination in the realm of Western Romance. In a 
country that was rapidly becoming tame and civilized, 
he stood for everything baroque and barbaric; he was 
the personification of all that was wild, uncultured, 
savage, and opposed to the trend of the times. The 
New England Brahmins, in particular, did not quite 
see how he could fit into their transcendental scheme. 
He revivified the days of the first settlers, when each 
man went armed against the relentless aborigines who 
might be lurking behind every bush and tree. Jesse 
James! The magical words are pregnant with ro¬ 
mance. Their terse, alliterative compactness was of 




JESSE JAMES 


19 


heroic stuff, so the people felt. It was distinctly a 
name worthy of a great man, worthy of a President. 
In truth, it seems possible that the name may account, 
as much as anything, for his reputation; so far as one 
can see, he was not essentially greater than the others 
in his gang, except in this one point. His brother, 
Frank, appears to have equaled him in almost every 
way; but —Frank James! No, it wouldn’t do; it 
sounded altogether too prosy and common to fit a 
demi-god and demi-devil. Yet the lives of these two 
brothers were remarkably similar—even more so than 
the careers of two contemporary brothers who bore 
the same name. Comparison may properly cease at 
this point, except that one cannot escape noticing how 
thoroughly the more notorious pair exemplified, in 
their chief pursuits, the gospel of pragmatism that was 
so vigorously expounded by one of the other brothers, 
although he might have feared that they were over- 
zealous. 

But it is high time for the chief actor to come forth. 
His manners may be a little uncouth, his language— 
although he speaks but rarely, preferring deeds to 
words—not too refined, and squeamish individuals may 
choose to leave before the entertainment begins. The 
dramatic unities are at times necessarily disregarded, 
and the protagonist does not stand out so sharply as 
would be desirable; but the vast panorama of action, 
and the obscuring shadows that have fallen thickly 
upon various points of a forty-year-old story, preclude 
a clear-cut and well-rounded performance. It does 
not profess to have any particular moral, yet it offers 
abundant opportunity for moralizing; and so, perhaps, 




20 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


after all, tender-hearted folks may not find it wholly 
profitless to remain. 

II 

The Reverend Robert James was a Baptist preacher 
of high renown. A college graduate and a scion of a 
good Kentucky family, he early married a young lady 
whose ancestry was likewise excellent, and settled in 
Clay County, Missouri, in 1842. His piety was so 
genuine that he “never asked money for preaching and 
the good farmers to whom he broke the bread of life, 
gave him very little”; he therefore supported his fam¬ 
ily by farming. A great exhorter, a fervent expounder 
of the Gospel, a wonderful revivalist, he pointed many 
benighted souls to the light. But they were indigent 
souls, his family was growing, and he wished to educate 
it; particularly did he wish that his two baby sons, 
Frank and Jesse, might grow up to be good boys who 
would follow, as all good boys should, in the parental 
footsteps, and become defenders of the faith. 

At this time the frenzy aroused by the discovery of 
gold in California was sweeping over the land. The 
holy man meditated and saw a vision: abundant riches 
—the means of educating his sons for the ministry— 
beckoned him from afar. One writer states, however, 
that his wife’s “strength of character” was chiefly 
instrumental in causing him to abandon his vicarious 
striving after the pearl of great price for the sake of 
material wealth; but it was also rumored that the lady’s 
character was not so strong in other particulars—that 
the two little lads were only half-brothers, and that the 
father of Frank was a well-known physician in Clay 




JESSE JAMES 


21 


County. At all events, the good minister left for Cali¬ 
fornia in 1851, was soon “stricken by a mortal dis¬ 
ease,” died, and was laid to rest “in a soil unhallowed 
by the dust of kinsmen, in a grave unbedewed by the 
tears of loved ones left behind.” Four years later 
the afflicted widow, who was no longer a “coy blushing 
maiden to be wooed and won by the sweet blandish¬ 
ments of love,” married Dr. Reuben Samuels, a well- 
known physician in Clay County. “But if the Doctor 
could have foreseen what perils lay before him,” com¬ 
ments a reflective observer, “he might perchance have 
paused.” 

Perchance he might; but how could he have fore¬ 
seen? The two particular perils whose step-father he 
had become were now growing apace. Nothing defi¬ 
nite is known concerning their boyhood days; but the 
ingenuity of their various biographers has fortunately 
atoned for this absence of information. “The jocund 
laughter of innocent youth seldom broke from their 
' bps,” remarks one sagaciously speculative romancer, 
“but, instead, oaths and curses, and bitter threatens, 
mingled with gross profanity. . . . Cutting off the 
ears and tails of dogs and cats, and the wings of birds, 
was a cherished practice, and the pitiful cries of the 
dumb suffering things was a sort of music they de¬ 
lighted in.” Such pleasant pastimes, to be sure, are 
wont to be followed by many normal youths—occasion¬ 
ally even by abnormal youngsters, who penitently con¬ 
fess such sins as the destruction of cherry trees with 
their wicked little hatchets. But upon one point all 
of these biographers are in accord: the incipient crimi¬ 
nals early became skilled in the use of fire-arms. 




22 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


The Civil War came. Frank and Jesse were too 
young to go; nevertheless, that bitter fratricidal strife 
was directly responsible for determining their future, 
because the backwash of the struggle engulfed their 
native state and they were submerged in its scum. 
Those fiery abolitionists, who had flocked to Kansas 
in the early fifties, formed themselves in roving hordes, 
euphoniously called Jayhawkers and Red Legs, which 
soon harassed the surrounding territory for a variety 
of possible reasons—self-protection, patriotism, prose- 
lytism, plunder—and “border ruffians” swooped over 
the boundary of Missouri to engage the interloping 
enthusiasts. The emotional bias manifested by the 
recorders of the time makes it impossible to evaluate 
with accuracy the motives which stirred the com¬ 
batants ; but why attempt to explain the vengeful feroci¬ 
ties of war? There were mutual skirmishes, pillages, 
ambushes, torturings, murders—all the familiar ex¬ 
cesses that a state of war makes inevitable; indeed, 
Sharpe’s rifles had been dealing death for some years 
before the great conflict started. In 1856, the fanati¬ 
cal abolitionists wantonly attacked two brothers, 
named Quantrell. The older brother was killed and 
the younger was desperately wounded; but eventually 
he recovered, and the terrible experience he had under¬ 
gone turned the youth into a merciless marauder who 
lived for one purpose only—to avenge his slaughtered 
brother. He disguised himself, joined the Jayhawkers, 
and succeeded in murdering thirty of the thirty-two 
men who had embittered his life. At length he was 
found out and fled to Missouri, where he organized 
“Quantrell’s Band of Guerrillas,” whose numbers, 




JESSE JAMES 


23 


almost to a man, had suffered as their leader had suf¬ 
fered, and who devoted their energies to killing all the 
Kansas fighters they possibly could, as a propitiation 
for the deaths of relatives and friends. When war 
came, the field of their activities widened; they were 
Southern in their sympathies and fought with equal 
hatred against Northern regulars and Kansas irregu¬ 
lars. 

All this, in the eyes of the North, was highly im¬ 
proper. Organized warfare, it was felt, was quite 
correct and eminently respectable; but this business of 
fighting without regard for the rules of the game was a 
cowardly and dastardly proceeding. Those vile rene¬ 
gades fought as though they positively enjoyed it, and 
not because they were commanded to fight by superior 
powers who alone had the right to sanction civilized 
slaughter on a large and legal scale. They must there¬ 
fore be shown, by hook or crook, that such unchivalric 
methods were wholly opposed to governmental prece¬ 
dent; and if the demonstration necessitated the inflic¬ 
tion of severe penalties upon harmless bystanders, it 
really could not be helped; besides, the bystanders were 
very likely in league with these rebellious miscreants. 
In the spring of 1863, a company of Northern militia¬ 
men stopped at the home of Dr. Samuels and demanded 
to be told where Quantrell was hiding; the Doctor must 
surely know, for the pestiferous brigand had been seen 
recently around those parts. The foolish Doctor said 
that he did not know, but the soldiers were convinced 
that he was lying. They drove him with their bayonets 
to a tree near his barn, put a rope around his neck, and 
hung him upon the tree until he was nearly dead. Three 




24 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


times he gasped out his ignorance; three times they 
strung him up and lowered him. Then they threatened 
his wife; she likewise protested her innocence; and the 
captain told his men to bring the culprit to the house 
so that his wife might bid him farewell. To a question 
concerning her husband’s fate, the captain answered, 
“I’m going up here to kill him and let the hogs eat 
him.” A shot was fired. Mrs. Samuels believed that 
her husband had been killed, but actually it was merely 
a bluff and he was hauled off to jail. A few days later 
she too, with her young daughter, was incarcerated for 
twenty-five days in a jail that rang with the jovial ob¬ 
scenities of nondescript prisoners; but no definite 
charge was made against her—she was a Southern sym¬ 
pathizer, it was said. 

At this time Jesse was fifteen years old. The sol¬ 
diers had lashed his back with a rope, had threatened 
him with their bayonets, and had forced him to witness 
the cruelties that were inflicted on his step-father. 
After they were gone, he said, “Ma, look at the stripes 
on my back.” She pulled his shirt off and wept to see 
the livid welts that scarred his flesh. He muttered be¬ 
tween his teeth, “Ma, don’t you cry. I won’t stand 
this again.” “What can you do?” she asked. “I’ll 
join Quantrell,” he replied. And the stripling meant 
what he said, even though he lacked the robustiousness 
of most boys. His peach-blossom cheeks might be as 
soft and delicate as a girl’s, his eyes as innocently blue 
as the cloudless sky; but even then those eyes were al¬ 
ways wandering, always shifting and flitting almost 
instantaneously from one object to another, and the 
slanting lids, drawn together so that the eyeballs had 




JESSE JAMES 


25 


something of the sinister furtiveness of an Oriental’s, 
were forever restlessly blinking and batting each other. 
Perhaps a granular condition caused by youthful illness 
was responsible for this peculiarity; but no matter— 
the peculiarity was symbolic. The sensitive, puckering, 
projecting lips were compressed into something that 
was partly a sneer and partly a dashing, devil-may-care 
abandon. It was a face on which early innocence was 
struggling against ever encroaching signs of sly, impish 
cunning and reckless bravado—a face that might indi¬ 
cate either a future general, financier or corsair. 

The lad kept his promise; he joined Quantrell’s 
Band. A greater amount of authentic information 
exists concerning this brief period of his life than of 
all the remainder; he was not yet a myth, a type of 
heroic deviltry or of courtly knighthood. Before many 
months had passed—when he was barely sixteen—he 
won this compliment from a seasoned veteran: “For a 
beardless boy he is the keenest and cleanest fighter in 
the command.” Once, when three hundred Union sol¬ 
diers attacked the guerrillas, he shot their leader, and 
the troops, demoralized by this disaster, turned their 
horses and fled. Accompanied by four comrades, he 
pursued sixty of the fugitives; after six miles had been 
covered, the five guerrillas had killed fifty-two of the 
sixty. A little later, in another combat, his horse was 
shot dead and he was wounded in the left arm and side. 
Falling behind the horse’s body, he held the soldiers at 
bay until rescuers came to his aid. Ten of the one hun¬ 
dred and seventeen Northerners who, in the words of 
a realistic scribe, “mouldered in their gory graves” 
after this bloody affair, mouldered because of the un- 




2 6 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


erring pistol of Jesse James. He was quite as tricky 
as he was bold. It was known that the Union troops 
used a certain disorderly house as a rendezvous. Jesse 
James, dressed as a charming young maiden, rode up 
to the house and told its mistress that he was a young 
girl fond of adventure, and that he would come to the 
house the same evening, bringing several girls who also 
wanted to “have a good time.” That night the guer¬ 
rillas crept up to the house. The “shameful festival 
was at its height. The women were nearly nude and 
the whole company assumed every conceivable form 
of voluptuous grouping. They had been drinking hard. 
The songs were loud and lewd.” All at once the dis¬ 
graceful corybantic revel was routed by the crack of 
nine revolvers, and nine men fell dead. A moment 
later the surviving three were sent to moulder in their 
gory graves, while the guerrillas, strangely disdaining 
the proffered fruits of victory, rode away well satisfied 
with the night’s work. The girlish complexion and 
blue eyes of Jesse James did good service that day. 

His quick eye and his accurate aim continued to do 
good service. But other eyes were quick, too; and 
in August, 1864, a rifle bullet tore a great hole through 
his right lung. He thought it was the end, and, pulling 
a plain gold ring from his finger, gave it to a comrade 
with the request that it should be given to his half- 
sister, Susie Samuels; but the careful nursing of friends 
at length restored his health. In the autumn of this 
year, most of the guerrillas joined the regular Southern 
army; however, a few of them, including Jesse James, 
sallied southward until they reached Texas. They re¬ 
turned to Missouri in the spring of 1865, and, inas- 





Jesse W. James 


“I hereby certify that the 
husband, taken before 
loaned by 


above is the only late photograph of ray deceased 
death.” Mrs. Jesse W. James. (From photo 
Howard Huselton, Kansas City.) 










. 































































JESSE JAMES 


27 


much as the Confederates were everywhere surrender¬ 
ing, most of the renegades decided that they had better 
do likewise while there was a chance of mercy. With 
a white flag borne by Jesse at the head of the column, 
the turncoats filed into a Federal camp on March 15, 
held a conference to fix the terms of surrender, and 
were marching out again when some Northern soldiers 
attacked them. In the conflict that inevitably fol¬ 
lowed this violation of the laws of warfare, Jesse was 
again shot through the right lung. He fled to the near¬ 
by woods, keeping off all pursuers with his pistol until 
they were either dead or frightened away. Then he 
fell in a faint and for the next two days and nights lay 
burning with fever on the banks of a creek, feebly bath¬ 
ing his wound and drinking water. At sunset on the 
third day he had sufficient strength to crawl toward a 
neighboring house, whose inmates were luckily in favor 
of the Southern cause. 

Destiny, it seems, was against him—or was he one 
of her darling sons? The weight of a hair—a dis¬ 
honorable trick—tipped the scales. Except for this 
tragic occurrence, he would apparently have headed 
straight toward the oblivion of becoming an honorable 
citizen of the republic; but Nemesis had other plans. 
Had he been allowed to surrender, all would have 
been . . . well; but fate, forever inscrutably smiling, 
intervened. 

The officer in charge of the Federal camp considered 
that the insurgent had surrendered, although his des¬ 
perate wound made an actual surrender temporarily 
impossible. Indeed, that officer declared that he did 
not parole the outlaw because he “thought it an unncc- 




28 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


essary formality to go through with in the case of a 
dying man,” and he supplied funds for transporting the 
invalid to his mother, who, in order to avoid persecu¬ 
tion, was then living in Nebraska. Perhaps his wounds 
made him unusually sentimental; we are told that he 
became acquainted with the Union officer who shot 
him, and that they “became fast friends and exchanged 
photographs.” He remained in Nebraska eight weeks, 
so near to death that his mother often “put her ear to 
his heart to see if it was yet beating.” At the end of 
this time, he said, “Ma, I don’t want to be buried here 
in a Northern state.” “You shan’t be buried here,” 
was her comforting reply. “But, Ma,” he feebly pro¬ 
tested, “I don’t want to die here”; and the staunch 
woman at once said to the household, “We’re going 
back to old Missouri if the trip kills every one of us.” 
They arrived safely home, although for months to 
come he was not able even to sit up in bed. But the 
rigorous life of the preceding years had metamor¬ 
phosed the soft and effeminate youth into a strapping 
man whose iron constitution had already survived 
twenty-two wounds; so it turned out that the ministra¬ 
tions of sister Susie and another young lady eventually 
cured him. Meanwhile a new, an unbelievable emotion 
had been stirring in the breast of the valiant fighter— 
he was madly in love with his nurse. When almost re¬ 
covered, one day he abruptly said, “Ma, I’m going to 
marry Zee.” The mother, jealous as mothers almost 
invariably are of their sons’ affections, told him that, 
since he was not yet of age, she did not intend to let 
him marry anyone. He merely replied, “Ma, Zee and 
I are going to be married.” Both the speech and the 




JESSE JAMES 


29 


pistol of Jesse James had a remarkable way of going 
straight to the heart of things. 

Since one tender emotion had been aroused, it was 
easy for another very similar one to spring into life. 
The dead father had cherished a vision about the 
future of his sons; was it possible that his dream was 
at length to be realized? Did Jesse recall, in some 
vague way, a time when, only fourteen months old, he 
had been held up in his mother’s arms so that he could 
see his father baptize sixty repentant sinners in one 
stretch, without leaving the water? Or was it the 
imminence of death that had turned his thoughts 
toward a better life? As soon as his health permitted, 
he attended revival services held in the Baptist church 
near his home, “was converted and professed religion, 
and was baptized and joined the church.” Further¬ 
more, we are assured that it “was a sincere conver¬ 
sion,” because from this time on he never “slew a 
human being except in the protection of his own life.” 
But in those days there were plenty of inhuman beings. 

Ill 

At this point the clear-cut boundaries of history 
must be left almost entirely behind. We are now on 
the borderland of a region perpetually obscured by 
dense fogs and impenetrable mists of unverifiable leg¬ 
ends, wild speculations, unsubstantiated rumors', and 
appalling tales without number—a romantic region, 
almost wholly untainted by corrupting fact. Some¬ 
where within those trackless depths lurks that fright¬ 
ful organization known far and wide as “The James 




30 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Band,” whose bloodthirsty members, accoutered with 
seven league boots and cloaks of darkness, flit with 
incredible rapidity from one place to another in con¬ 
temptuous defiance of the laws of speed and gravita¬ 
tion. Leaping unsuspectedly from some hidden lair, 
they pounce upon the unwary passengers of coaches and 
trains, shoot down one or two hapless persons just to 
show that they are in earnest, despoil the aghast sur¬ 
vivors, and vanish, as quietly and as stealthily as they 
came, back into their secret refuge. But they are no 
common cutthroats, no vulgar ruffians greedily bent 
upon wealth for its own sake; they are the finished 
artists of their profession. They are virtuosos in the 
fine art of murder, exemplifying to perfection the excel¬ 
lent principles laid down by De Quincey; robbery and 
slaughter must be committed with the finesse that can 
be attained only by long, laborious study and practice. 
Precaution, promptness and precision are their watch¬ 
words; what they do must be done neatly and with dis¬ 
patch. If blood and brains must flow, the flood should 
be generous; if bullets must fly, they must lodge either 
in the heart or the brain—all other parts of the human 
frame are invariably safe from harm. To shoot a 
person in a casually general way—to smash a rib or 
clip a chunk out of his cheek—would not be sportsman¬ 
like; and besides, he might be crippled or disfigured for 
life. Men of wealth and social position, and women 
who lack the boon of beauty, may expect short shrift 
from them; a twitching trigger and a crisp “Hands 
up!” or the more elaborate salutation, “Damn your 
souls, surrender or die!” and vile, gratuitous blasphe¬ 
mies, are their inevitable portion. But poor, needy 




JESSE JAMES 


3i 


virtue in distress or a charming female visage—ah! 
how fortunate are those who rejoice in such sentimental 
blessings! At once the desperadoes drop their atro¬ 
cious masks and stand forth as champions of right and 
blooming beauty: needy virtue departs, its pockets lined 
with the gold that has been filched from bloated, plu¬ 
tocratic vice, and captivating loveliness reaps the re¬ 
ward of polished devoirs and low-bowed apologies. 

So run the old wives’ tales of diablerie —tales that 
were gulped down entire by the vast majority of hard- 
headed, matter-of-fact citizens of the republic. Is it 
possible that a century which swelled with elation over 
its dazzling achievements in applied science, and looked 
with mingled pity and disdain upon the slow and barren 
times of its forefathers, was not quite so far advanced 
intellectually as is believed; that it was stupendously 
credulous, elementary, primitive and pagan, despite its 
veneer of Christian civilization? It was, in truth, un¬ 
changeably and eternally child-like in its explosive affec¬ 
tion for dramatic opposites: it struck the shackles from 
the slave and riveted imponderable fetters upon its own 
mental processes; it piously extolled drab virtues and 
practiced attractive . . . excesses; it apotheosized the 
leaders in humanitarian endeavors and fawned upon 
dirty pugilists; it worshiped Abraham Lincoln and 
immortalized Jesse James. 

But that adorable monster had no desire to be im¬ 
mortalized. If we may believe the word of his son, 
he merely wished to “convince his enemies that his sur¬ 
render at the close of the war was sincere, and . . . 
his only wish was to live a clean, honest, God-fearing 
life, and at peace with all the world.” The son’s mo- 




32 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


tives for writing his father’s biography were extremely 
pious. Thousands of people, he said, had asked “why 
I did not write such a book, and promised to buy one if 
I did write it. If all of these keep that promise it will 
have been a good business venture for me”; further¬ 
more, it was penned “for the support of my mother.” 
Incidentally, it was hoped that the volume might “do 
something to correct the false impression that the 
public have about the character of my father.” As a 
business venture, and as an advertising medium for the 
“Jesse James Five-Cent Cigar—Sold over the Entire 
United States—Unsurpassed in Quality,” it was an 
entire success and established the son in his cigar stand 
at the court house in Kansas City, Missouri, in a thor¬ 
oughly satisfactory manner. But it is to be feared that 
many thousands who, reveling simultaneously in the 
“first and only true story” of Jesse James and in five- 
cent cigars unsurpassed in quality, were still uncon¬ 
vinced that the halo of fascinating infamy had been 
torn from the head of their hero. 

The hero himself was now at the beginning of his 
nineteenth century Odyssey. In February, 1867, while 
he was still weak from the effects of his frightful 
wound, six militiamen rode up at night to his mother’s 
house and demanded that he should surrender. Jesse 
shouted, through the barred door, an inquiry as to 
what the men intended to do. “Hang you, by God!” 
the leader snapped. Accounts differ as to what fol¬ 
lowed; one ardent devotee of decorative prose avers 
that the dauntless insurgent fired his heavy dragoon 
pistol with such fatal aim that four of the men fell 
dead, “staining the virgin snow with the crimson tor- 




JESSE JAMES 


33 


rents of their heart’s blood. ... It was a solemn 
sight. The dead men with pallid faces gazing stony 
gazes, out of sightless eyes, at the radiant moon and 
patient stars, the pure white mantle of the snow, 
stained and bedabbled with their blood; while the 
silence of the night was broken by the discordant 
groans of the wounded!” But the more prosaic son 
swears that the truth was different—that the mere 
appearance of the wounded lion at bay was sufficient 
to make the six hunters gallop away at full speed be¬ 
neath the radiant moon and patient stars, leaving the 
lion to lick his wound and utter victorious growls. 
Nevertheless, he could not be certain that more valiant 
men might not come to his lair; and that same night 
he mounted his horse and rode away—away to sixteen 
years of glory and shame. Throughout all that inex¬ 
plicably confused and distorted period of his life, he 
was “followed, trailed, surrounded, shot at, wounded, 
ambushed, surprised, watched, betrayed, proscribed, 
outlawed, driven from state to state, made the objec¬ 
tive point of infallible detectives, and he . . . tri¬ 
umphed”—until he was finally betrayed. 

Rarely, very rarely, does the all-enveloping mist rise 
for a brief space from that mysterious region where his 
ghostly, gigantic figure sped around doing its deeds of 
horror and mercy, of blackest turpitude and of clement 
kindness. He committed hundreds of murders and 
robberies, and acted the part of the Red Cross Knight 
toward fair ladies in distress; he cleaned out a bank in 
Texas, and held up a train in Missouri on the same day; 
he despoiled capitalists of all their wealth, and then 
gave it to poor widows and bereaved orphans. He 




34 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


shot his enemies from ambush, kissed his mother when 
they met and parted, betrayed his friends, and crammed 
his children’s stockings with bulging presents at Christ¬ 
mas—but it is useless, and indeed impossible, to sum¬ 
marize a tenth of his fabulous activities, for there was 
no ultimate evil and no ultimate good that the dashing 
highwayman did not accomplish. 

Fortunately a tiny residue of incidents remains 
among multitudinous fabrications—incidents substan¬ 
tiated by the unanimous verdict of his memorialists. 
In order to escape the minions of the law who were 
hot on his trail, Jesse James fled to California in 1867, 
where he lived “quietly” for a year; he then returned 
to Missouri, “hoping that he would not be molested 
if he stayed close to home and worked the farm for his 
mother.” But the vindictive animosity of the law pre¬ 
vented him from the pursuit of a pastoral life; he was 
driven into the rocky fastnesses of his native state, 
where he was sought after in every place—except the 
right one. The only photographs of his person were 
in the possession of his family; the few who were lucky 
enough to be on terms of familiarity with him were 
almost invariably his friends, genuine or diplomatic 
(“I had my family to think of,” apologized one old 
fellow when queried as to the reason for his close¬ 
mouthed reticence) ; he wore assumed names and vari¬ 
ous disguises; and he was therefore sought in vain. 
Besides, he was always armed with two 45-caliber 
Colt’s revolvers and three cartridge belts, together 
with plenty of spare shells in his pockets to be used in 
case of emergencies; and when he went “on a trip,” 
he carried a valise full of cartridges and a Winchester 




JESSE JAMES 


35 


rifle concealed within a large umbrella. He was also, 
in the expressive language of the plains, “a dead shot.” 
One day as he was talking over old times with his 
mother in the shade of the home porch, a red-headed 
woodpecker lit on a tree some fifty yards away. Jesse 
whipped out his revolver and said, “Ma, you’ve heard 
about my being a good shot, I’ll show you.” He pulled 
the trigger, and the woodpecker pecked no more. Per¬ 
haps, on the whole, it was fortunate for the families 
of the men who pursued the elusive bandit that they 
rarely encountered him, or that, when a meeting did 
take place, they failed to recognize him. 

One officer who actually faced him lived to tell the 
tale. As Jesse was about to sit down to dinner one 
day, he saw the sheriff approaching the house. Draw¬ 
ing his revolver, he said, “Open the door, Ma,” and 
the sheriff walked in. “Your gun, please,” Jesse re¬ 
quested with the utmost politeness, and the trapped 
man did the only expedient thing—he handed it over. 
“Now, sit down and have dinner with us,” commanded 
the gracious host; and the two sat down at the table 
and “chatted like old friends while they ate a hearty 
meal.” The sheriff was “always a great friend of my 
boys after that,” said their proud mother; and who, 
indeed, could fail to admire such a hospitable and gen¬ 
erous rogue ? 

He seems actually to have taken much pleasure in 
playing grimly humorous jokes; perhaps he vaguely 
appreciated the kaleidoscopic tragi-comedy of his life. 
Almost every night, during a certain year, a posse near 
his home gathered, with that species of collective 
bravery common to armies, mobs and wolves, to start 




3 6 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


in search of him; and the pursued often strolled in to 
talk over with the pursuers the plans which had been 
laid for his apprehension, and to wish them good luck 
on their trip. Once, when he was being shadowed with 
particular energy, he played the part of jockey in two 
heats of a horse race, and was greeted with riotous 
applause when he thundered in, the winner of the race 
and purse. Such a many-sided individual would natu¬ 
rally have been touched, one supposes, with the altru¬ 
ism that was a leading trait in his generation; and so he 
was, although it is true that his altruism was colored, 
as was also true of much contemporary benevolence, 
with a large tinge of self-interest. Dining one day with 
the widow of a member of Quantrell’s Band, he was 
told that a mortgage was to be foreclosed on her place 
that very day, and that she would then be ordered off. 
Five hundred dollars, she casually remarked with a 
tear in her eye, would foot the bill. He promptly 
handed that amount over to her, with the request that 
she should be careful to get a receipt; then, with his 
companion, he rode off amid a shower of lacrymose 
benedictions from the simple-minded and religious 
woman. But he waited in concealment by the roadway 
until the transaction was finished and the two unsus¬ 
picious officers were driving by, when they were com¬ 
manded to halt. “Are you Sheriff -?” he asked. 

“Yes,” was the reply. “Throw up your hands !” Four 
trembling hands shot skyward; and when the five hun¬ 
dred dollars had been taken from the crestfallen men, 
they were allowed to go their way in peace. “I give 
this,” comments the dull son of a clever father, “as an 
example of how desperate chances Jesse James would 






JESSE JAMES 


37 


take to aid the widow of a comrade in distress.” Again, 
his love of sardonic fun would take a family turn. He 
once persuaded a friend to dress as a detective and go 
to the Samuels’ house to work a hoax on his mother. 
“The old lady may take a shot at you,” was his part¬ 
ing word, “but if she don’t hit you go right in.” The 
trick succeeded, and the poor woman was so thoroughly 
scared that she neglected to take a shot at the intruder. 

But all the detectives who came to visit her were 
not harmless impostors. In January, 1875, a party 
of them sneaked up to her home at midnight, and, 
thinking to destroy the brothers without harm to their 
own skins, hurled a bomb through a window into the 
house. It exploded; one piece instantly killed the 
young half-brother of the intended victims, who were 
actually miles away from the scene, and another tore 
off their mother’s right arm between the wrist and 
elbow. Then the brave defenders of law and morality 
rode away, serenely content with the success of their 
device. Such callous scoundrels naturally would not, 
it was thought, be much concerned over a mere family 
tragedy; the stony-hearted wretches would not care 
what happened to their kith and kin so long as they 
went unharmed. Yet a letter, which, notwithstanding 
its general grammatical correctness, bears the appear¬ 
ance of genuineness, appeared shortly after in the Kan¬ 
sas City Times, with the signature of Jesse James ap¬ 
pended. It was headed “Safe Retreat” and fulminated 
with tersely unliterary power against the “midnight 
assassins who murdered my poor, helpless and innocent 
eight-year-old brother, and shot my poor mother’s arm 
off.” “The detectives are a brave lot of boys,” it con- 




38 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


tinued, “—charge houses, break down doors and make 
the gray hairs stand up on the heads of unarmed vic¬ 
tims. Why don’t President Grant have the soldiers 
called in and send the detectives out on special trains 
after the hostile Indians? A. M. Pinkerton’s force, 
with hand-grenades, and they will kill all the women 
and children, and as soon as the women and children 
are killed it will stop the breed, and the warriors will 
die out in a few years.” But President Grant was too 
busy making political appointments just then to con¬ 
sider with proper care one of the most excellent sug¬ 
gestions regarding military strategy that was ever pro¬ 
pounded. 

The bloody raid on the Samuels’ residence, however, 
created a profound public sentiment in favor of the 
outlaws. Already the state had expended huge sums 
for their capture, it was very doubtful if the capture 
would ever be effected, and the fair name of Missouri 
was becoming more and more tarnished. Other men, 
worse perhaps than those who were being hunted, were 
making the James and Younger boys the scapegoat for 
innumerable crimes; the boys themselves had never 
been actually convicted of any definite deeds of vio¬ 
lence; everything that touched them teemed with ma¬ 
licious rumor and hearsay. It was even suggested that, 
inasmuch as the United States had granted political 
amnesty, it did not seem quite right for one state to 
persecute any of its citizens for acts committed during 
the war. In consequence of this public agitation, a 
resolution was introduced in the state legislature to the 
effect that “full and complete amnesty and pardon . . . 
for all acts charged or committed by them during the 





JESSE JAMES 


39 


late civil war,” together with a fair trial for “all of¬ 
fenses charged to have been committed since said war,” 
should be offered to the members of the robber band. 
But a Democratic governor sent a message to the gen¬ 
eral assembly denouncing them, and a Democratic 
legislature, actuated by correctly partisan motives, re¬ 
fused to pass the measure. Mrs. Samuels, together 
with friends of the two brothers, begged three gov¬ 
ernors to give fair terms of surrender, but deaf ears 
were turned to their requests. This was the end; the 
outcasts, more than ever men without a country, faced 
the inevitable: a brief and turbulent existence termi¬ 
nated sooner or later by a bullet or a rope. 

Some of them might flinch, but not so their leader. 
Henceforth the lion was absolutely at bay; he might 
be overpowered at last, but woe to the unfortunate 
hunter who incautiously approached too near his hid¬ 
ing-place! The world was against him, was it?— 
wanted his heart’s blood, wanted him to whimper and 
cower, to come cringingly in and submit to his fate? 
Very well, he would give the world blow for blow—and 
he would get his blows in first. His keen animal in¬ 
stincts became keener; he was ever on the alert and any 
suspicious sight or sound brought him to his feet in a 
flash. When he heard some little noise in the house, 
so his half-brother stated, “he’d whip out his pistol 
so quick you couldn’t see the motion of his hand”—that 
small, sinewy hand with its long, tapering, musician¬ 
like fingers, which indeed played one instrument as only 
a master could. The tall, erect figure, lithe and supple 
despite its one hundred and eighty-five pounds, moved 
with an agile grace that almost concealed the blemish 




40 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


of bow-legs; the head was thrown defiantly back, the 
blue eyes still snapped at quick intervals as they shot 
around in every direction, the large ears were cocked 
back to catch the slightest rustle that boded danger. 
The face was no longer girlishly delicate and semi¬ 
innocent; the youthful sneer had deepened into the 
fixed rigidity of supercilious scorn; the lean cheeks and 
firm, full lips were set in quiet but deadly determina¬ 
tion—a determination that was paradoxically strength¬ 
ened when the ghastly semblance of a smile flickered 
briefly over the gaunt countenance. The stubby, sand- 
colored beard that prickled over the cheeks and the 
bulky chin, the turned-up nose with its bulb-like end, 
the peaked, retracting forehead, the projecting cheek¬ 
bones, and the large eyes that stared from their cav¬ 
ernous depths—all these distinctive traits were amal¬ 
gamated into a mixture of swaggering insolence, in¬ 
domitable self-trust, and cunning, cat-like ferocity. 
And still—was it merely sympathy for sinners that 
caused the impression?—in the fixity of a photograph 
the deep-set eyes no longer wore an Oriental appear¬ 
ance; instead, they looked almost jocular, decidedly 
honest, and even dreamy and poetic. 

IV 

The violent denouement came. Death—sudden, 
swift and implacable—at last clutched its wily and 
elusive victim by the throat. The culminating act in 
the life of the leading figure in a great national drama 
was appropriate. He must die as he had lived—die 
with his boots on, at the apex of his course, in the full 





JESSE JAMES 


4i 


flush of health. The curtain must fall, not upon a tame 
sick-bed scene, but upon a bloody corpse fittingly laid 
low, as Robin Hood is reputed to have been laid low, 
by treachery; and so it turned out. 

Ten thousand dollars, offered by Governor Crit¬ 
tenden of Missouri for the pariah’s apprehension and 
conviction, was a tempting sum. Two brothers, com¬ 
monly called Charlie and Bob Ford, had trailed the 
victim for months, waiting for the moment when they 
could find him off his guard and shoot him; but he was 
so cautious and so heavily armed even among seeming 
friends that they waited until April 3, 1882—for they 
did not once entertain the possibility of capturing him 
alive, “considering the undertaking suicidal.” On that 
morning, after breakfast was over in the house where 
“Thomas Howard” was then living in St. Joseph, Mis¬ 
souri, Jesse remarked to the Ford boys who, in the 
guise of friendship, were his guests, “It’s an awfully 
hot day.” He took off his coat and vest, unbuckled the 
belt which held his two pistols, mounted a chair, and 
began to dust a picture which, together with the ubiqui¬ 
tous mural decoration, “God Bless Our Home,” consti¬ 
tuted the sole ornaments in the room. In an instant 
Bob Ford leveled his revolver at the back of the out¬ 
law’s head. He heard the click as the weapon was 
cocked, and started to turn his head; but the movement 
was his last. A heavy bullet crashed through his brain. 
His wife rushed into the room and lifted her husband’s 
head into her lap; his tremendous vitality was not yet 
quite gone and he seemed to be endeavoring to speak; 
then the head fell back—and the mortal myth had put 
on immortality. 




42 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


The report of his death caused the wildest conjecture 
and confusion; since the assassination of Garfield in 
the preceding year, there had been no event of such 
national importance. At first the people, particularly 
in the little town where the murder occurred, refused 
to believe that the renowned bandit had at last been 
dropped in his tracks. Jesse James dead ? They sim¬ 
ply laughed—did some idiot really think that they were 
such damned fools as to believe a thing like that? Did 
he not bear a charmed life? No, it was impossible 
that he could die—impossible that one of their most 
cherished illusions could be so summarily dispelled. 
But if their mayor said it was true, they might believe 
it; was not his word authoritative on all matters? The 
mayor was approached and his opinion was eagerly 
sought; “I fully believe that he is dead this time,” he 
said. The matter was settled; it must be true, after 
all. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and rushed to 
the scene of the tragedy, in order to help identify the 
body. Of course it was Jesse James: So-and-So posi¬ 
tively knew it was because of this or that scar—the two 
weals near the right nipple, and the missing first joint 
on the middle finger of the left hand; So-and-So had 
talked with him and therefore recognized the pale fea¬ 
tures perfectly; So-and-So had been held up by him— 
surely he would never be forgotten after that! Mean¬ 
while little Jesse, feeling in some dim, childish way that 
these people were responsible for his father’s death, 
lugged a shotgun from its hiding-place and tried to fire 
it at the crowd; but his mother took it away. 

Some years after this, Governor Crittenden, who 
had been roundly scored for the means by which he 




JESSE JAMES 


43 


had effected the apprehension and conviction of the 
desperado, was fortunately able to appease the pangs 
of his conscience by coming boldly to the defense of 
this same son, who had been accused of following his 
father in the matter of train robbery. It is also pleas¬ 
ant to record that 

the dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard 
And laid Jesse James in his grave, 

soon went to a fitting death in a drunken brawl. 

On the day when Jesse died, screaming newspaper 
headlines informed the public that the greatest living 
peril of organized society had held up and robbed a 
train in Texas. Next day the body, encased in an 
expensive metallic coffin and protected by a heavy 
guard, was taken to Mrs. Samuels’ home in Kearney, 
Missouri. “I knew it had to come,” she tearfully la¬ 
mented, “but my dear boy Jesse is better off in heaven 
today than he would be here with us.” The funeral 
occasioned a public holiday, and from the surrounding 
country people began to stream in at an early hour on 
trains, on horseback, and in every sort of vehicle, 
determined to enjoy to the full the greatest day in their 
lives. One train that passed through Kearney was 
obligingly stopped by the conductor long enough so 
that the passengers might go to see the body. The 
obsequies were held, with peculiar felicity, in the same 
Baptist church in which Jesse had been converted; and, 
as it was rightly believed that one minister could not 
furnish a sufficient background of solemnity for the 
extraordinary occasion, two were employed. The ser¬ 
vice opened with the singing of what was supposed to 




44 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


be Jesse’s favorite hymn, “What a Friend We Have in 
Jesus,” a selection from Job concerning the brevity of 
human existence was read, and a prayer was offered 
which revolved around the idea that the bereavement 
would be a blessing to the family if its members were 
thereby led to acknowledge the domination of the 
Lord. Another appropriate selection, “Where Shall 
Rest Be Found?” followed; then came the sermon. 
After wisely admitting that it would be useless for him 
“to bring any new information before this congrega¬ 
tion respecting the life and character of the deceased,” 
the speaker made the most of the evangelistic opportu¬ 
nity that was his in addressing such an unusually large 
audience, whose members he strongly urged not to 
neglect their own salvation. He made one practical 
suggestion, however; in order not to excite the “half- 
brother of the corpse,” who was very ill, it was re¬ 
quested that only close friends and relatives should 
attend the funeral procession to the family home. The 
only discordant note came when the coffin was opened; 
then, as the spectators filed by, “there were shrieks, 
moans, and curses.” Pallbearers, who included the 
local sheriff and five other leading citizens who were 
“eminent either in respectability or crime,” then bore 
the dead man to his grave in the shade of a giant coffee- 
bean tree which stood close to the house where he was 
born. As a precaution against body-snatchers, the 
grave was filled with stones and an armed guard was 
stationed over it. 

Prose and poetic tributes without number, extremely 
censorious or exculpatory, were soon paid to the mem¬ 
ory of the departed. A notorious Southern lawyer 




JESSE JAMES 


45 


epitomized the sentiments of all good but less gifted 
citizens in a great burst of moral indignation. “Fare¬ 
well, Jesse James, prince of robbers!” he thundered. 
“Missouri cries a long, a glad farewell! Cruelest 
horseman that ever wore a spur or held a rein, seem¬ 
ing oftener like Death himself on his pale horse charg¬ 
ing through the land, than feeling man, farewell! fare¬ 
well ! Foulest blot that ever marred the bright escutch¬ 
eon of a glorious state, farewell! farewell! Yes, thou 
bloody star of murder, hanging for years like a thing 
of horror in our very zenith, frightening science and 
civilization from our borders—I condemned the man¬ 
ner of thy taking off, yet I could but join the general 
acclaim, when, seized with the shock of death, we saw 
thee reel in thy orbit, and then plunge forever into old 
chaos and eternal night.” An aspiring metricist like¬ 
wise happily expressed the feelings of the unregenerate 
and poetically inarticulate multitudes who revered the 
dead chieftain. 

Sadly, in the early Spring time 
Did we lay him away to rest, 

Away from this cold, unfeeling clime, 

Safe away among the blest. 

No more now will he be hunted 
By his enemies so bad, 

All his young life abruptly blunted, 

Ah! ’tis sad, ’tis very sad! 

Why did they kill him thus? So sudden 
Why pin on him death’s awful lance? 

Why pluck the flower just in its budding, 

Why didn’t they give poor Jesse a chance? 




4 6 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


How much worse were they who killed him, 
The brand of Cain is on their brow, 

Oh, how sad that they have stilled him; 

But Jesse is in Abram’s bosom now. 


Farewell, farewell, we see you there 
Beckoning with thy own dear hand; 

And with the angels ever bright and fair, 

We will meet you in that heavenly land. 

Over thirty years later, in 1914, an enterprising 
reporter visited the James Home, now become one of 
the national shrines. There he interviewed Frank 
James who, having surrendered soon after his brother's 
death, and having been acquitted since no one could 
swear that he was guilty of any of the crimes charged 
against him, thenceforth led a life of peace and repose. 
A tall, well-preserved man of more than seventy years, 
he combined the appearance and manner of the patri¬ 
arch and the showman, fortified his frequent moral 
comments with quotations from the Bible and Shake¬ 
speare, expressed a firm belief in woman suffrage, and 
kept a keen eye on possible tips. “I tell you those 
yellow-backed books,” he remarked, in speaking of the 
voluminous James literature, “have done a lot of harm 
to the youth of this land—those and the moving pic¬ 
tures, showing robberies.” When questioned as to the 
truth of the yellow-backed books, he became suddenly 
reticent, but finally said: “If I admitted that these 
stories were true, people would say: ‘There is the great¬ 
est scoundrel unhung!’ And if I denied ’em, they’d 




JESSE JAMES 


47 


say: ‘There’s the greatest liar on earth!’ So I just say 
nothing.” 

And, since Frank James and Cole Younger, the last 
survivors of the lawless clan, recently departed to sleep 
with their forefathers, in strict truth there is nothing 
more to be said. But still—who knows?—perhaps, 
from the vantage ground of Abram’s bosom, the rest¬ 
less shade of Jesse James is craftily plotting the organ¬ 
ization of a celestial James Band, which, leading a sec¬ 
ond revolt of seditious angels, will attempt to succeed 
where Satan himself once failed. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Buel, James W., The Border Outlaws. An Authentic and 
Thrilling History. . . . Historical Publishing Co., St. 
Louis, 1882. 

Dacus, J. A., Illustrated Lives and Adventures of Frank and 
Jesse James. N. D. Thompson & Co., St. Louis, 1881. 

Edwards, J. N., Noted Guerrillas, or The Warfare of the 
Border. H. W. Brand & Co., St. Louis, 1879. 

James, Jesse E., Jesse James, My Father ... The First and 
Only True Story of His Adventures Ever Written. Senti¬ 
nel Printing Co., Kansas City, 1899. 

Lomax, J. A., Cowboy Songs. Sturgis & Walton Co., New 
York, 1910. 

Miller, George, Jr., The Trial of Frank James for Murder. 
G. Miller, Kansas City, 1898. 

Ottenheimer, I. & M., Jesse James: A Romance of Terror. 
Baltimore, 1910. 

Rhodes, James Ford, History of the United States. Vol. II. 
Harper & Brothers, New York, 1896. 




48 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Street, J., The Borderland. Collier’s Weekly, Sept. 26, 1914. 
Triplett, F., The Life, Times and Treacherous Death of 
Jesse James. Chambers & Co., St. Louis, 1882. 
[Unknown Author] The Wild Bandits of the Border. 
Laird & Lee, Chicago, 1893. 

Villard, Oswald Garrison, John Brown. Houghton Mif¬ 
flin Co., Boston, 1911. 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 

I 

During the closing days of September, 1899, New 
York City was the scene of the most tremendous dem¬ 
onstration of frenzied enthusiasm that the Western 
Hemisphere, until that time, ever witnessed. Under a 
clear sky, in the bracing coolness of perfect weather, 
the city’s millions joyously gave up business of every 
sort, and, casting aside their customary emotional re¬ 
straints, cut all kinds of undignified capers. The elite 
of Fifth Avenue and the denizens of the Bowery care¬ 
lessly touched unfamiliar elbows, exchanged friendly 
courtesies in the form of a mutual slapping of backs 
and punching of ribs—those emblems of perfect com¬ 
ity—and hobnobbed with little thought of social dis¬ 
tinctions. 

And certainly the spectacle that greeted the crowd 
was stupendous and thrilling enough to justify all this 
display of clamorous and incoherent, almost fanatical 
rapture. Along the North River estuary of the spa¬ 
cious Hudson stretched a procession of boats, nearly 
four miles in length, of every imaginable type. At its 
head steamed the dull gray American battleships, fol¬ 
lowed by domestic and foreign merchant vessels, by 
gayly decorated floats, tugs, launches, and by an innu¬ 
merable varety of small craft, the huge cannon on the 

49 


50 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


battleships thundering their song of victory while the 
smaller guns on the other vessels roared applause. The 
piers on the New York and New Jersey coasts were 
alive with hurrahing thousands, while some hundreds, 
aloft on scaffoldings specially erected on barges and 
canal boats, perched upon seats bought at a premium. 
Two large floats, “Peace” and “Victory,” were notably 
conspicuous. “Victory,” a colossal figure, was pre¬ 
ceded by Neptune driving his four steeds, and was sur¬ 
rounded by four enormous female figures blowing long 
and fragile trumpets, which waved ludicrously around 
in the breeze. Unfortunately she soon became a pa¬ 
thetic spectacle, since the flimsy material out of which 
she had been constructed was ruined from the waist 
upward by gaping holes, torn on account of rough 
treatment by tugs, wind and waves; meanwhile several 
workmen at her base stolidly puffed their pipes, not a 
whit awed or impressed by their classical environment. 

On the following day, the pageant was, if possible, 
even more imposing. A parade of soldiers and sailors 
marched from Grant’s Tomb to the reviewing stand 
at Madison Square; but the crush was so terrific that 
the police were scarcely able to keep sufficient space 
clear for the passage of the military marchers. Some 
wise spectators had purchased, from street hawkers, 
soap and beer boxes on which to stand; and authorized 
seat speculators stormed and swore at the intruding 
hawkers, both parties meanwhile frequently resorting 
to violent and bloody exchanges of fisticuffs. As the 
procession approached Madison Square, its members 
saw upon the reviewing platform the outstanding figure 
of the occasion, posing tete-a-tete with New York’s 


I 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


5i 


preeminent citizens, Richard Croker and Mayor Van 
Wyck, together with other representative personages. 
With fitting pomposity, the Mayor proceeded to read 
his one thousand word typewritten speech; and there 
were hearty cheers when he finally concluded. More 
cheers resounded as the Mayor presented to this out¬ 
standing figure a gold loving cup, and then bestowed 
upon him that greatest of all unnecessary honors—the 
freedom of the city. 

Had some modern Rip Van Winkle, roused after 
twenty years of peaceful slumber, come forth into the 
city’s streets and inquired about the singular cause of 
all this hubbub, he would not have been left long in 
doubt. To his dazed query almost anyone would have 
replied, in a tone of surprised and condescending pity, 
“Why, don’t you know? That’s Admiral Dewey, the 
man who licked the dirty Spaniards at Manila, and 

we’re going to make him our next President, by-!” 

But it would scarcely have been necessary to ask such 
a question; for “Welcome Dewey” blazed everywhere, 
upon arches, banners, flags and pennants. “Welcome 
Dewey” sparkled in electric lights on the span of 
Brooklyn Bridge. “What’s the matter with Dewey?” 
someone in the crowd would shriek, and screaming back 
came the expected but never tiresome answer: “He’s 
all right!” Dewey canes were flourished, Dewey but¬ 
tons were worn by the more timid souls, while bolder 
ones smoked Dewey cigars and got uproariously drunk 
on Dewey whisky. Still others, whose excess of emo¬ 
tion flowed in less questionable channels, occasionally 
broke into songs which in sentiment resembled this 
specimen: 





52 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


He took a thousand islands and he didn’t lose a man— 

Raise your heads and cheer him as he goes— 

He licked the sneaky Spaniard till the fellow cut and ran, 
For fighting’s part of what a Yankee knows. 

He broke ’em, and he drove ’em, and he didn’t care at all, 

He only liked to do as he was bid; 

He crumpled up their squadrons and their batteries and all, 
He knew he had to lick ’em and he did. 

Meanwhile, the Admiral himself reacted in various 
ways to this unprecedented experience. He strove 
hard to appear at ease, to be dignified, and to show his 
appreciation, all at the same time. Once or twice he 
was moved almost to tears, but quickly checked such an 
unsailorlike exhibition of feeling. In strict truth, it 
must be admitted that those who, because of the 
imponderable crush of hectic, quivering thousands 
jammed around the platform on which the noble hero 
stood, found it impossible even to approximate a close 
scrutiny of their idol, were a bit disappointed in the 
figure their eyes beheld over and beyond the impassable 
human barrier. They rejoiced to note that, in spite of 
his sixty-two years, the Admiral still held himself erect 
in a precise and dignified military poise; but was it not 
a pity that, instead of being gifted with tall and com¬ 
manding proportions, he was somewhat undersized 
and—yes, a little disconcerting and disillusioning it 
was—rather stout? But the lucky few who, for the 
most part involuntarily, found themselves near enough 
to gaze in spell-bound reverence on his face —his face 
—gained the serene satisfaction of having their implicit 
faith in hero-worship restored. They gladly forgot 
the undistinguished form under the hypnotic power of 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


53 


the face and the head, temporarily uncapped, contrary 
to military etiquette, for public view. A halo of Olym¬ 
pian power and majestic repose encircled, so it seemed, 
that classically sculptured head with its still abundant 
iron-gray locks, and emanated from every line and 
angle of the finely chiseled countenance—from the 
broad, imposing stretch of the lofty forehead; from 
the suggestion of volcanic energy that lurked in the 
dark, widely spaced eyes entrenched beneath heavy and 
almost entirely black eyebrows; from the two deep, 
frowning lines between those eyebrows and from the 
wrinkles on the nether eyelids; from the large, long, 
slightly convex nose; from the thick white mustache 
which curved upward at the ends of its five-inch sweep 
across the face; and from the rugged jaw that some¬ 
what belied the generally oval shape of the face, and 
formed a fitting pediment for the whole. Such were 
some of the impressions which, although unexpressed 
and inchoate, most struck the members of the mob, 
who now, claiming the perennial right of mobs to touch 
apotheosized beings, pressed forward and shook hands 
with Dewey so persistently and vigorously that his 
right hand became swollen, and he was compelled to 
use his left. One hand, indeed, he had refused to 
shake. As he marched in the street, an intransigent 
youth broke through the police lines and extended his 
hand; the Admiral “looked at the dirty hand and his 
own immaculate gloves . . . and then shook his head 
in emphatic denial.” 

He had, in fact, dreaded the whole occasion. A few 
days earlier he had written thus to a friend: “God 
knows I would rather go into battle tomorrow than 




54 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


face the ordeal that my fellow-citizens have, in the 
kindness of their hearts, prepared for me.” And yet 
he seems not to have doubted, at least in retrospect, 
that he fully merited the honors which had come to 
him. “On the 30th of April, 1898,” he wrote, mod¬ 
estly enough, in his autobiography, “I had been prac¬ 
tically unknown to the general public. In a day my 
name was on everyone’s lips. The dash of our squad¬ 
ron into an Oriental bay seven thousand miles from 
home had the glamour of romance to the national 
imagination.” 

The glamour of romance! Undoubtedly; for it is 
by romance that the imagination of peoples may most 
easily and effectually be stirred. But was romance all? 
Were the purposes of the government, when it ordered 
Dewey to capture Montojo’s squadron, merely roman¬ 
tic? Its purposes were indubitably humanitarian and 
altruistic; who could question that, when it so often, so 
fervently, and through so many mouthpieces, pro¬ 
claimed that such were its aims? Of course, if, after 
the demands of romance, humanitarianism, and altru¬ 
ism had been satisfied, some more tangible rewards 
were gained in the shape of coaling stations for naval 
needs, individual islands in particularly strategic spots, 
a whole archipelago of islands with unknown riches, 
the complete wiping out of Spain’s three hundred years’ 
grip upon the Western Hemisphere, a foothold in the 
Orient hard by the ports of China and the illimitable 
wealth of the magical East, and, finally, a nation on 
which the sun never set, whose flag floated on both 
sides of the world—if any such unanticipated compen¬ 
sation should come as the result of a governmental 





© Harris E. Ewing 


Admiral Dewey 
























































■ . 
































ADMIRAL DEWEY 


55 


policy purely unselfish and without ulterior motives, the 
government could certainly not be blamed for accept¬ 
ing them. If such were our manifest destiny, as was 
assuredly true, who would dare to refuse the benefits 
conferred by that destiny? It would be unpatriotic, it 
would even be blasphemous, not to follow whither the 
finger of God so clearly pointed. 

Such appear to have been some of the motives and 
expectations of our political leaders during the Spanish- 
American War—an epoch which now seems so distant, 
so almost unsubstantial, although but a generation has 
since elapsed. Most of the salient figures in that strug¬ 
gle have passed—to their reward, it is to be hoped— 
and the causes, the details, and the results of the strug¬ 
gle itself, as portrayed in the pervasively partisan or 
chauvinistic documents of the period, are blurred and 
indistinct. Yet it is largely to that contest that we owe 
our position in the world today: through it the world 
learnt for the first time that we had become a nation 
to be respected and therefore feared; through it we 
abandoned our century-old policy of isolation, banished 
European control from an important part of the West¬ 
ern Hemisphere, and became a colonizing nation. 
Briefly, the Spanish-American War made us one of the 
great nations of the world. 

And yet, through one of those tantalizing paradoxes 
of which destiny is so fond, in ousting European rule 
over a considerable area, we ourselves accepted Euro¬ 
pean governmental standards as our own. Once more 
the historical commonplace became true: the conqueror 
became captive, the captive became conqueror. We be¬ 
came enmeshed, as Europe was already enmeshed, in 





56 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


the coils which the French and the Industrial Revolu¬ 
tions threw around the civilized world. The first put 
political power into the hands of the bourgeoisie, who 
immediately entered politics for financial gain, who in 
the United States built up gigantic combinations of 
wealth, carefully fostered and protected by the laws 
which their builders’ boundless influence enacted; the 
last, through manifold mechanical inventions, obliter¬ 
ated space and made colonization possible—made pos¬ 
sible also the further enrichment of already opulent 
bourgeoisie through investments of capital in railroads, 
sugar and tobacco companies, and in the limitless busi¬ 
ness opportunities that those colonies offered. All this 
led to a spontaneous outburst of patriotic and religious 
emotion. What duty could be more pleasant than to 
rule inferior races, to take up our share of the “white 
man’s burden,” to live beneath a flag that was never 
furled—in short, to acquire as much of the earth’s sur¬ 
face as was reasonably and politically possible? And, 
after the inferior peoples had experienced the blessings 
of civilization; after they had been properly subjected, 
properly taxed, made properly alcoholic and syphilitic; 
after they had become civilized sinners—would they 
not then be in the mood to desire and accept the civil¬ 
ized theology of condemnation, conviction, repentance, 
regeneration, justification and sanctification? Assuredly 
they would be; thus the missionary, following in the 
path already blazed by the rifle, the whisky bottle, and 
the eminently social diseases, found many sinners desir¬ 
ous of learning the way unto salvation, and his soul 
rejoiced thereat. 

The designs which impelled us in the war with Spain, 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


57 


particularly in matters relating to the Philippine 
Islands, were eloquently propounded by President 
McKinley at Boston on February 16, 1899. “The 
Philippines, like Cuba and Porto Rico, were entrusted 
to our hands by the war, and to that great trust, under 
the providence of God and in the name of human prog¬ 
ress and civilization, we are committed. It is a trust 
we have not sought; it is a trust from which we will 
not flinch. . . Our concern was not for territory or 
trade or empire, but for the people. . . . No imperial 
designs lurk in the American mind. They are alien to 
American sentiment, thought and purpose. Our price¬ 
less principles undergo no change under a tropical sun. 
They go with the flag. They are inwrought in every 
one of its sacred folds and are inextinguishable in its 
shining stars.” 

In the welter of conflicting motives, of bitter dissen¬ 
sions, of clashing antagonisms, and of malignant hypoc¬ 
risies, which lies in the short span of time that saw our 
war with Spain, Admiral George Dewey was with little 
doubt the most engaging and beguiling participant. 
For it was he who made possible what others had 
planned; by his action in sinking the Spanish fleet he 
consummated the fulfillment of national hopes more 
than a century old; the political figureheads of his day 
owe, in abundant measure, their place in history to his 
deeds. On one brilliant May morning he struck despair 
into the heart of one nation whose history stretched 
across the centuries, and brought to fruition the long¬ 
ings of another and younger nation which desired a 
wider place in the sun; more than that, he made that 
nation dream dreams of conquest and might, such as it 




58 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


had never dared dream before. Unimportant, almost 
unknown in his country, and rather unimpressive in 
personality as he was, by one lucky stroke he leapt into 
dazzling popularity, and saw that country at his feet 
in rapt adoration—for a time. It is idle to speculate 
as to whether our course would have been the same if 
Dewey had not won his victory; and if he had lost—! 
Fate—perhaps forces not quite so impalpable as fate 
—had selected him for this task. 

II 

The salient quality of Dewey’s temperament was 
love of action—action for its own sake, and perhaps in 
less measure for the sake of display. As one whose 
great-grandfather had fought in the Battle of Lexing¬ 
ton, and as one who had served under Porter and Far- 
ragut, he had inherited and acquired a tendency toward 
stoical reserve, toward glum taciturnity and crispness 
of speech. He strenuously cultivated the dignity of 
aloofness, by which the meek and adoring obeisance of 
subordinates may best be won. Off duty he might be 
a good fellow, who tilted the convivial bottle and 
helped induce the mood of comity that good fellows 
feel while swapping indelicate tales; on duty he had a 
great naval tradition to maintain—a tradition that the 
first in rank must be absolutely fearless, intolerant of 
the faintest sign of disobedience or over-familiarity, 
incisive in command, and merciless toward anything 
short of complete submission to his will. It was pos¬ 
sible to feel pretty much at ease and moderately well 
acquainted with Dewey; but it was not possible to feel 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


59 


really intimate. He would listen to, and even seek, 
advice from his officers at Manila; but when the advice 
had beeil given, he would say: “You may think that 
your opinion is correct, but I know that you are wrong. 
There is no question of it and I am right in the matter.” 
After that, there was no more arguing or discussion. 
When matters were going well, he was fairly approach¬ 
able and at times almost friendly; but when affairs went 
wrong, there was a something in his deportment and a 
glint in his eye that kept even those closest to him at a 
distance. 

He was of French origin. After he became a world 
figure, to be sure, nearly every prominent race tried to 
establish him as its own descendant; the Swedes insisted 
that he had sprung from one Dewjansen, a Viking; the 
Germans, from one Duwig who was nobody in particu¬ 
lar; the Italians, from a certain Di Wi; the Russians, 
from an uncertain Dhjukjii; the Scotch and the Irish 
also contended for the honor of his name, but without 
claiming definite pedigree. A Huguenot named Douai 
moved in the latter part of the sixteenth century to 
Kent, England, and there changed his name to Duee. 
One descendant came to Massachusetts in 1634 in 
search of religious freedom, which he seems to have 
found; for he altered the spelling of his name to 
Dewey, and, apparently in order that there might be 
no uncertainty about it, perpetuated himself generously 
enough to make Dewey the accepted spelling. The 
future Admiral, born on December 26, 1837, was 
the son of Dr. Julius Dewey, who had settled in his 
medical practice at Montpelier, Vermont. The Doctor 
was a man of very fixed principles about right and 




6 o 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


wrong; these principles, together with a vigorous con¬ 
stitution, he transmitted with moderate success to his 
son, whose mother died when he was but five years old. 

In his autobiography the Admiral gives an unques¬ 
tionably round but not wholly unvarnished account of 
his life. It is very evident that he strove hard to make 
that account revealing, correct and lively. His suc¬ 
cess in these matters was not wholly inspiring; one can 
imagine him pausing at frequent intervals in the task of 
dictating, and refreshing his memory and his tongue 
with a drop or two of, let us hazard, whisky and soda; 
but even this was not sufficient, and therefore he sought 
the aid of a competent critic in matters of style, and 
presumably of grammar. In this volume he endeav¬ 
ored, among other things, to show that his boyhood 
was marked by unusual daring and hardihood. Yet it 
is possible that other children besides Georgie Dewey 
have been good swimmers and lovers of snowball 
fights; that they have proposed occasional hairbreadth 
stunts to demonstrate that they were not afraid to take 
a dare; that they have indulged in dramatic exhibitions 
in the family barn, with cows and horses as the only 
critical spectators; and that they have had fights with 
their teachers in the district school. 

At fourteen Dewey entered the Norwich Military 
Academy, which had been founded by the first superin¬ 
tendent of West Point. With such a combination of 
influences, nothing was more natural than that the lad 
should have acquired fondness for an active life, and 
should have desired to go to West Point, or Annapolis. 
The naval training place was eventually selected; and, 
by the help of a little political assistance from Senator 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


61 


Foote of Vermont, Dewey entered Annapolis in 1854. 
His behavior at first was not all that could be desired, 
and this fact, together with a weakness in history— 
which seems to have been augmented eventually by the 
part he played in making it—prevented him from win¬ 
ning immediate recognition. With his classmates 
“Shang” Dewey, as he was called, sang songs which, 
within the compass of sixteen lines, exhausted the pos¬ 
sibilities of such words as middies, furloughs, liberty, 
plugs of tobacco, sweethearts, tears and home. “I 
always joined in the song heartily,” he remarked in his 
reminiscences, “and I also chewed tobacco. . . . How¬ 
ever ... I became convinced that it was a filthy, 
vulgar habit in which no officer or gentleman should 
indulge. So I declared that I would chew no more. It 
required a good deal of fortitude to overcome this 
habit, more, I think, than to give up smoking. But I 
kept my pledge to myself, and never took another chew 
after I had made up my mind on this subject.” His 
fortitude in the matter of smoking, however, was pru¬ 
dently never put to such a complete test. He proved 
his manhood, furthermore, by beating up a cadet who 
had bestowed a highly uncomplimentary epithet upon 
him at mess; for this act of chivalry, Dewey was given 
ten demerits and congratulated in the same breath; but 
by degrees his conduct improved so that, at the time 
of graduation, he stood fifth in his class. Elis first 
experience in naval life consisted of a cruise for a year 
and a half as midshipman in Mediterranean waters—a 
cruise which seems to have been made memoi able 
chiefly by the facts that, on one occasion, five hundred 
and fifty gallons of beans were condemned and thrown 






6 2 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


overboard, and that the charming daughters of the 
United States Minister to Turkey “did much to make 
the stay of the Wabash pleasant for the midshipmen.” 

In the Civil War, Dewey was fortunate in serving, 
for a considerable period, under Farragut, who became 
his ideal forever; always thereafter, when in a difficult 
position, he was accustomed to ask himself, “What 
would Farragut do?” From Farragut he learnt also 
to be urbane, yet indomitable, and to have a firm belief 
in Providence and in the righteousness of his country’s 
cause, in whatever war it might choose to engage. Inci¬ 
dentally, he became a little strengthened, under Farra- 
gut’s apt teaching, in the art of profanity; but in that 
art he endeavored to become a trifle more diplomatic 
than Farragut, who, on one terrifically hot day, fol¬ 
lowed the “Amen” of his grace at dinner with a Selah 
in the ejaculation, “It’s hot as hell here!” Dewey’s 
commander on the Mississippi, Captain Melancthon 
Smith, who trusted in Providence even more devoutly 
than Farragut, and who habitually smoked while in 
action, lighting one cigar with the butt of another as 
the enemy’s shells screamed around him, eventually 
found it necessary to inform Dewey and other officers 
that, while privately they might curse with unlimited 
vigor and variety, the penalties for public oaths would 
be severe; and the good Captain also became a bit sus¬ 
picious when he learnt of the young officer’s fondness 
for champagne. 

At the Battle of New Orleans, Dewey displayed 
conspicuous bravery and chanced to have the honor 
of saving the Mississippi from destruction by the Con¬ 
federate ram Manassas, through a swift turning move- 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


63 


ment. But the Mississippi was finally lost at the 
Battle of Port Hudson, for it ran on a shoal bank 
and had to be abandoned. It was then necessary to 
transport the men safely to the shore; and while the 
bullets hissed and snapped around him, Dewey directed 
the movements of the rowboats to a safe landing. In 
doing this, he violated the tradition that officers should 
be the last men to leave a sinking vessel, and was 
much worried lest he should be killed while absent 
from his ship; to have been killed at his post of duty 
would apparently not have worried him at all. Luckily 
he escaped death, but was compelled to order an under 
officer to force a part of the men back to the ship at 
the point of a revolver, so that the remaining men 
might be rescued. This was done; and as the last of the 
crew pulled away, the burning Mississippi swung off 
the shoal and came hurtling down the river, furnishing 
the magnificent spectacle of a dying vessel manned by 
dead men only, her still loaded port guns firing their 
last salvo at the enemy’s banks when the flames reached 
their primers. Farragut was naturally very sorry to 
lose such a valuable boat; but he philosophically re¬ 
marked that it was impossible to make an omelet with¬ 
out breaking a few eggs. Fifty years later, Dewey said 
that he had lived about five years in that eventful hour, 
four and one-half of those years passing when he was 
absent from his ship; but he was rewarded when Cap¬ 
tain Smith’s report referred to “the coolness of my 
executive officer, Mr. George Dewey.” Following this 
disaster, he was made executive officer of the Colorado, 
which was manned by a crew of seven hundred men 
who had not been amenable to discipline; but they 




6 4 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


soon found out that the new officer intended they should 
be. As Dewey called the roll the first morning, not 
all of the men responded, and he discovered that they 
had refused to turn out on account of the cold. At 
once he went to their sleeping quarters and tipped 
the slumberers out of their cozy bunks, “in a way that 
left no doubt of the business-like intentions of the new 
regime.” He shortly gained complete submission from 
the crew, after he had subdued their ringleader, a 
giant, red-haired Englishman, by telling him that he 
would be shot if he tried to make any more fuss. 

The Civil War at last ended, for the next thirty 
years Dewey was shifted from boat to boat and from 
station to station with bewildering frequency. He 
cruised for two years in European waters, came home 
in 1867, and married the daughter of ex-Governor 
Goodwin of New Hampshire; with his bride he then 
settled at Annapolis, where he was given charge of the 
midshipmen and of the ships stationed there. Vice- 
Admiral Porter was superintendent and, having mel¬ 
lowed with age, permitted and even encouraged so 
many social functions that the place acquired the name 
of “Porter’s Dancing Academy.” In 1870 Dewey was 
given his first regular command of a ship, and a year 
or so later was sent to the naval torpedo station at 
Newport, where his young wife died after giving birth 
to a son. When, as commander of the Narragansett, 
Dewey was engaged in surveying the coast of lower 
California in 1873, he made a curiously prophetic re¬ 
mark. There was danger of a war with Spain even 
then, because of the shooting by Spanish officials of 
the crew that manned the Virginius, a semi-piratic and 



ADMIRAL DEWEY 


65 


filibustering vessel; and Dewey one day found his men 
very despondent because they feared that, in case of 
hostilities, they would not be able to participate. “On 
the contrary, we shall be very much in it,” he assured 
them. “If war with Spain is declared, the Narragan - 
sett will take Manila.” His autobiography at this 
point contains the highly suggestive statement: “I had 
always been interested in the Philippine Islands and 
had read whatever books I could find relating to them, 
and my familiarity with the subject immediately sug¬ 
gested them as a logical point of attack.” Perhaps 
this was merely the garrulity of old age, pleasantly 
romancing and painting its achievements with height¬ 
ened color; again, later events show that it was quite 
probably true. 

After serving for two years as light-house inspector 
at Boston, Dewey was appointed secretary of the light¬ 
house board at Washington, where he spent four more 
years, enjoying the dinners and receptions which his 
position made possible, and indulging in his favorite 
exercise, horse-back riding. In 1882 he once again 
put to sea in command of the Juanita, and welcomed 
a sea-voyage because his health at this time was poor. 
At Malta, typhoid fever and an abscess of the liver 
forced him to leave his boat; there he was relieved of 
a portion of his liver, and his health improved so that 
he soon took charge of another ship and continued 
to cruise in European waters. As chief officer of the 
Kearsarge, in 1886, he once more proved his intre¬ 
pidity. There were rumors of a mutiny; and Dewey, 
heavily armed, ordered the ship’s writer to precede him 
into the hatch, where the crew was assembled. Then, 





66 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


taking a pistol in each hand, he commanded, “Call the 
roll!” “John Jones,” read the clerk. “John Jones,” 
came the response. Then Dewey said, “John Jones, I 
see you. I’m going to have your name called once 
more, and if you don’t answer and immediately go up 
on deck you are a dead man. Call the roll!” “John 
Jones,” the clerk read again, but there was no response. 
Dewey fired and John Jones fell dead. “Now, men,” 
he quietly remarked, “the roll will be continued. As 
each man’s name is called he will answer and go up 
on deck. Call the roll!” The mutiny was completely 
ended, and “Shang” Dewey was undisputed master. 

His experiences in European waters had convinced 
him that the maintenance of a European squadron by 
the United States was poor naval strategy. As chief 
of the equipment bureau of the Navy Department 
from 1890 to 1894, he steadily labored to persuade the 
Secretary of the Navy that a concentration of naval 
forces nearer home was absolutely essential as a matter 
of strategic policy; but it was not until after the war 
with Spain that his advice was heeded. In 1895 he 
was made president of the Board of Inspection and 
Survey, and thus, significantly enough, gained precise 
knowledge about the fighting qualities of almost every 
vessel in the navy; and in 1896 he was advanced from 
the rank of Captain to that of Commodore. 

The narration of fact now shifts briefly to the less 
substantial but more fertile field of speculation. What 
were the motives that persuaded the various individ¬ 
uals in power, when war with Spain was drawing near, 
to select Commodore Dewey, then sixty years old, as 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


6 7 


commander of the Asiatic Squadron—Dewey, who was 
ranked by seven superior officers? Had he, in his 
forty years of naval service, shown evidence of quali¬ 
ties which seemed to make him peculiarly fitted for a 
task that demanded promptness of decision and a 
willingness to gamble with chance—or was it merely 
that fortune and a gracious Providence smiled benig- 
nantly upon him? Without doubt they did; but they 
seem to have been abetted by more explicit and con¬ 
crete factors. “He was sent to command it in the 
fall of 1897,” sa ^d Roosevelt, “because, to use the 
very language employed at the time, it was deemed 
wise to have there a man ‘who could go into Manila 
if necessary’”; because he had “faithfully and for 
long years made ready himself and his weapons for 
the possible need”; because he had demonstrated that 
he was not “afraid to vary in times of emergency from 
the regulations laid down in times of peace.” Into 
Manila if necessary—and thus possibly gain a foot¬ 
hold in the Philippines? Dewey had won favor, in 
Harrison’s administration, when there was danger of 
trouble with Chili, by taking the responsibility of buy¬ 
ing coal for the squadron that would have been used 
against Chili, if war had come. He had once threat¬ 
ened to assume control of La Paz, in Mexico, unless 
the government of that city should guarantee protec¬ 
tion to a colony of Americans there, which was in 
danger of annihilation at the hands of Mexican miners 
who were inexcusably enraged at foreigners who owned 
and managed mines in Mexican territory; and his 
government had approved his action. In these ways, 




68 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


and in other experiences, he had shown that he could 
act in an emergency; that he was both cool and auda¬ 
cious; that he could demand and gain the instant obedi¬ 
ence of the forces under him. Was he finally chosen 
because it was thought expedient to select one who 
could be trusted to “vary in times of emergency from 
the regulations laid down in times of peace,” and 
who would have, to use his own language, “a free 
hand to act in consequence of being so far away from 
Washington”? And if his hand should act a little 
more freely than humanitarianism and high public 
and moral obligations dictated, could not the govern¬ 
ment justify his course by the plea of ignorance on its 
own part, and of military necessity on the part of 
Dewey? 

Some political dickering had to be resorted to, how¬ 
ever, in order that he might be appointed. Roosevelt, 
then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, told Dewey that 
he was the man for the post; that he would “be equal 
to the emergency if one arises”; and then asked if he 
had any political influence. The Commodore replied 
that he had, but disliked to use it; Roosevelt compli¬ 
mented him for his moral finesse, but still persisted. 
Then Dewey, who later remarked that “My heart was 
set on having the Asiatic Squadron,” suggested that 
Senator Proctor of Vermont was an old friend of his 
family. Roosevelt thumped him jubilantly on the 
shoulder, and told him to see Proctor at once. The 
meeting took place; and on that very day Proctor saw 
McKinley, and Dewey was at once appointed. Mr. 
Long, Secretary of the Navy, was rather indignant 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


69 


at this sudden turn of affairs, although he publicly 
declared that the selection of Dewey was “entirely 
my own”; but it was too late—chance, Providence 
and Roosevelt had won the day. 

What thought-provoking implications, what preg¬ 
nant possibilities, are masked in this plain statement 
of Dewey’s activities before he left for the Orient!—» 
“In the month that I had remaining in Washington I 
studied all the charts and descriptions of the Philippine 
Islands that I could procure and put aside many books 
about the Far East to read in the course of my journey 
across the continent and the Pacific.” Was his imagi¬ 
nation stirred, as he pondered over those charts and 
pages that spread before him a rich picture of all the 
mysterious charm that lay in the glowing Orient with 
its tropical profusion of unestimated wealth, into play¬ 
ing with schemes and devising courses of action to be 
pursued in order that his country, and conceivably his 
own name, might profit thereby? What flattering 
whispers of imminent fame may have been breathed 
in his ears, what unsubstantial wraiths may have 
flitted alluringly before him, their beckoning hands 
and siren voices urging him to follow? Or was he 
merely a simple, soldierly soul, unsusceptible to such 
immaterial phantoms, a stolid, phlegmatic personality, 
studying his problem only because duty to his country 
necessitated study? One cannot be quite certain about 
such matters, although what veritably happened dur¬ 
ing the next two or three years may cause one to make 
some passably definite conjectures. What is certain 
is that Commodore Dewey sailed from San Francisco 
on December 7, took command of the Asiatic Squad- 




70 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


ron on January 3, 1898, and hoisted his Commodore’s 
pennant on the good ship Olympia . 

Ill 

It is perhaps too easy for the curious investigator 
of the past, who strives to keep scrupulously detached 
from all passionate interests and to hold aloof from 
every aim save a just and clearly limned portrayal of 
the manifold deeds of men, to regard history as a 
more dramatic spectacle than it really is. The pano¬ 
rama of events that is spread before him, as he thumbs 
the dreary pages of heavy—how very heavy!—tomes 
and decaying manuscripts, tends to become contracted 
to the limits of a stage on which ridiculous, puppet¬ 
like figures prance and tumble about, responsive to 
controlling wires jerked by forces of which the puppets 
are almost totally unconscious. But these cavorting 
marionettes have often been suspiciously willing that 
this very impression should be noised abroad; they 
have at times hidden behind this conception—that they 
did what they did because they were impelled by un¬ 
controllable powers outside themselves—so that it 
might serve as a screen for such surreptitious incentives 
as the satisfaction of personal, party and national de¬ 
sires. They resemble, perhaps, not so much puppets 
strutting in a theater as mischievous little boys, munch¬ 
ing stolen apples and putting the blame of the theft 
on a neighbor, vehemently declaring that they had no 
idea that the apples had been appropriated by any 
member of their gang. Occasionally some lad, a little 
bolder than the rest, stands up and proudly admits 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


7i 


the theft, justifying himself by the circumstance that 
there were plenty of apples to be had, that the owner 
did not need them, and that his own stomach was 
empty; or he even claims praise for his deed, on the 
ground that the neighbor whose fruit he had stolen 
would have allowed it to rot, or that he himself had 
shared a portion of the fruit with his starving friends. 

“We took up arms,” McKinley maintained, “only 
in obedience to the dictates of humanity and in the ful¬ 
fillment of high public and moral obligations. We had 
no design of aggrandizement and no ambition of con¬ 
quest ... in the final arbitrament of force, this coun¬ 
try was impelled solely by the purpose of relieving 
grievous wrongs and removing long-existing conditions 
which disturbed its tranquillity, which shocked the 
moral sense of mankind, and which could no longer 
be endured . . . the war has brought us new duties 
and responsibilities which we must meet and discharge 
as becomes a great nation on whose growth and career 
from the beginning the Ruler of Nations has plainly 
written the high command and pledge of civilization.” 

It is quite possible that McKinley, in one of his 
Methodistic moods, may have believed all this; but 
his moods were not invariably Methodistic, while those 
of his confidants were rarely if ever thus. One can¬ 
not be wholly precise as to the government’s intentions 
concerning the Philippines during the war, and indeed 
in sending Dewey there before the war began; but 
some suggestive facts can be found here and there 
which tend to show that McKinley’s magniloquence 
was more vehement than accurate. Nor can it be 
positively proved that the government had what are 





72 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


now called imperialistic designs on the Philippines 
before Dewey took Manila; yet there can be no doubt 
that it was expecting and preparing for war, even 
while ostensibly striving for peace. But some officials 
were not striving for peace at all. “What are you 
doing toward getting up a war with Spain?” an Assist¬ 
ant Secretary inquired of a Cabinet Member early in 
1898. “I am practically alone in the administration, 
but I am doing all I can to bring it about,” was the 
answer. Whereupon the Assistant Secretary devoutly 
responded, “Thank God! Thank God!” “I had 
preached,” said Roosevelt, who at this time was an 
Assistant Secretary, “with all the fervor and zeal I 
possessed, our duty to intervene in Cuba, and to take 
this opportunity of driving the Spaniard from the 
Western World”; and Russell Alger, who at this time 
was a Cabinet Member, remarked to an unknown 
Senator, “I want you to advise the President to declare 
war. He is making a great mistake. He is in danger 
of ruining himself and the Republican Party.” An¬ 
other bellicose and influential Senator shook his fist 
in the face of Mr. Day, Secretary of State, and roared: 
“Day, by God, don't your President know where the 
war-declaring power is lodged? Tell him, by God, 
that if he doesn’t do something, Congress will exer¬ 
cise the power.” Senator Thomas Platt also desired 
war, but his reason for so doing had a distinctly 
higher ethical origin. “It would prevent the Demo¬ 
cratic party,” he said, “from going into the next Presi¬ 
dential campaign with ‘Free Cuba’ and ‘Free Silver’ 
emblazoned on its banners.” Platt found a staunch 
ally in Senator Hale of Maine, who declared that 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


73 


“if war must needs come, its conduct will not be in the 
hands of the Democratic party . . . that great soldier 
and statesman, the President of the United States, will 
conduct the war and bring it to a successful end.” 
Clearly enough, the Republicans were right in believ¬ 
ing that in union there is weakness, while in division 
there is strength. 

It has often been advanced in McKinley’s favor that 
he did need to be urged, that he hesitated long and 
exerted himself in every way to placate the rising 
clamor for war, hoping that some avenue of escape 
might appear. Perhaps he did. But perhaps, also, 
he hesitated partly because the army and navy were 
not ready in the early months of 1898—indeed, the 
army never was quite ready. And—again, perhaps— 
he finally yielded when the navy, at least, was ready, 
because of several reasons: because of the thought of 
the popularity that he would win as the chief figure 
in a war with a power so powerless that victory was 
almost certain; because a war would be a convenient 
means of making the country forget that the Dingley 
Tariff had not yet restored the good times promised 
by rosy campaign orators in 1896; because the busi¬ 
ness interests would forsake him if he failed them in 
this case; because many influential Republicans were 
threatening to leave the party, whose harmony would 
be rudely disturbed if he refused to yield; last, merely 
because he was not strong enough to resist further. 
Had he not been much perturbed over a letter, written 
by the Spanish Minister to Washington and made 
public in February, which referred to him as “weak 
and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd, besides 





74 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


being a would-be politician, who tries to leave a door 
open behind himself while keeping on good terms with 
the jingoes of his party” ? A curious circumstance had 
attended the publication of this letter. It was stolen 
from the mails and published in the New York 
Journal on February 9. The thief was never appre¬ 
hended; and surely a thief who was patriotic enough 
to make public another compelling reason for war, at 
a time when such reasons were ardently sought, merited 
anything but apprehension and punishment. 

For whatever cause or causes, McKinley yielded; 
and for a variety of reasons the country rejoiced. To 
feel sympathy for poor, abused Cubans (and Spain 
had abused them) was much easier and more pleasant 
for good Americans than to institute searching in¬ 
quiries into such domestic problems as the treatment 
of negroes, the ramifications of the competitive system, 
and particularly the rapidly growing combinations of 
capital in the form of trusts. And then there was the 
sinking of the Maine, nearly three months before the 
war began. Assuredly, the mine that worked the dis¬ 
aster could not have been placed by rebellious Cubans, 
or by American filibusters who had been scheming for 
several decades to stir up a war; it must, therefore, 
have been placed by the dastardly Spaniards. Ameri¬ 
can pride was injured; the American Eagle had had a 
feather snipped from one of his pinions. Murder the 
thief! Remember the A faine!” So shrieked the 
press, which topped its bellowings with the headlines 
WAR SURE! , in three- or four-inch letters; so 
shrieked—or almost shrieked—many Senators who, in 
general, 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


75 


throughout the war 
Did nothing in particular, 

And did it very well. 

In the conduct of the war, but one thing was vital 
—the control of the sea. “This single idea . . . 
underlay and directed every step of the Navy Depart¬ 
ment from first to last,” wrote Alfred Mahan, who 
was, to a large degree, himself responsible for the 
formulation of this policy, and whose Machiavellian 
breadth, clarity and frigidity of mind made him per¬ 
haps the supreme political thinker of his day. That 
the Philippines should be held by the United States 
was to him only an indispensable corollary of his mag¬ 
nificently expounded main proposition, which dealt 
with the arbitrary necessity that compelled America 
to seek, as a matter of primal importance, the destruc¬ 
tion of Spain’s sea forces; and he stated that corollary 
in pellucid and shining language, which towers immeas¬ 
urably above almost all contemporary writing in its 
austere and merciless logic, its masterly and penetrat¬ 
ing scope, its complete absence of muddy moralizing 
and glozing sentimentality, its antithesis in everything 
to the gallimaufry of pusillanimous and fewerish 
clamors of the time. “Sea power, as a national in¬ 
terest, commercial and military,” he tersely wrote, 
“rests not upon fleets only, but also upon local terri¬ 
torial bases in distant commercial regions.” Com¬ 
pacted in that single sentence, stripped bare of all the 
mendacious circumlocution with which the documents 
of that day are shot through, lies the real motive for 
the course which America took toward the Filipinos. 
The whole man, with his superb intellectual balance, 





76 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


his imperturbable and deliberate poise, stands revealed 
in that succinct declaration. 

During the summer of 1897, the Navy Department 
had been engaged in investigating the condition of 
the Spanish fleet in the Philippines, and government 
spies were busy in Madrid at the same time—approxi¬ 
mately at the time when Roosevelt was made Assistant 
Secretary—while the fleet was steadily being made 
ready for war. “Never before in our history was the 
[naval] service in so efficient a condition,” remarked 
Secretary Long. On January 11, 1898, instructions 
were cabled to the commanders of the several squad¬ 
rons to retain all men whose enlistments were about to 
expire. And it is a curious and noteworthy fact that, 
on February 25, Roosevelt should have sent this dis¬ 
patch to Dewey: “Secret and confidential. ... In 
the event of declaration of war with Spain, your duty 
will be to see that the Spanish Squadron does not leave 
the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in 
Philippine Islands.” Any operations conducted there 
would no doubt be offensive; but why, at this early 
date, was such a command given? “Before he 
[Dewey] sailed,” we learn from Secretary Long, 
“the policy of the administration was outlined to him, 
and he received instructions as to the course to pursue 
in the contingency of war.” Policy and instructions— 
what implications, what amazing possibilities, lie in 
those simple words! Why did the Secretary of War 
declare, in a burst of rare and presumably unpremedi¬ 
tated candor, that “the determination to send an army 
of occupation to the Philippines was reached before 
Dewey’s victory occurred”? It is furthermore a little 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


77 


strange that, on May 4, orders should have been 
issued by McKinley to assemble troops at San Fran¬ 
cisco for service in the Philippines; for at that date 
McKinley had received only vague reports of the de¬ 
tails concerning Dewey’s victory—the first official in¬ 
formation came on May 7. Did the President com¬ 
mand this because of a suggestion contained in a let¬ 
ter sent on May 3 by General Miles to the Secretary 
of War: “I have the honor to recommend that General 
Thomas M. Anderson be sent to occupy the Philippine 
Islands, in command of the following troops . . .”? 

• Exactly what may “occupy” have meant—or sug¬ 
gested? A telegram by Secretary Long, dated May 4, 
shows that the City of Peking had already been char¬ 
tered not only to send ammunition to the Philippines, 
but that it was prepared to carry troops as well. A 
letter by Dewey, written on March 31, nearly four 
weeks before war was declared—a letter never made 
public until the members of the Senate, in January, 
1900, forced the Secretary of the Navy to send them 
a copy—may serve to make the government’s pre-war 
attitude toward the Philippines somewhat transparent: 
“I believe . . . the Spanish vessels could be taken and 
the defenses of Manila reduced in one day. There is 
every reason to believe that with Manila taken, or 
even blockaded, the rest of the islands would fall either 
to the insurgents or ourselves.” Was, or was not, 
Admiral Cervera justified in remarking, on January 
25, 1898, “I have always considered these forces [the 
United States’ navy] a great danger for the Philip- 

• no 

pines r 

Whatever may have been the plans of the govern- 





7& 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


ment, and however much Dewey may have inspired 
and shaped those plans, his business was to whip the 
fleet under Admiral Montojo. Deliberately, and yet 
with unhesitating precision, he went at his task. From 
the American Consul at Manila, he discovered what 
preparations for battle the Spaniards were making, 
the number of their men-of-war, and of the fortifica¬ 
tions at Manila. Through secret negotiations, he 
arranged to acquire a future supply of coal and pro¬ 
visions, “independent of international complications,” 
in an isolated Chinese locality which was also to serve 
as a refuge from battle in case of need. This bargain 
was, of course, a violation of international law; but 
who cared so long as the law was not effective? Evi¬ 
dently Dewey did not; for he stated, “We appreciated 
that so loosely organized a national entity as the 
Chinese Empire could not enforce the neutrality laws.” 
Had the American people known of this during the 
anxious months of the coming summer, when the gov¬ 
ernment was being criticized for its failure to send 
aid to Dewey, and mutterings were heard about the 
fate of Gordon at Khartoum, they might have rested 
much easier; and the Commodore himself might have 
been chided far more severely than he was, for his 
failure to sail toward home after his victorious en¬ 
counter with Montojo. 

When he learnt of the Maine’s destruction, Dewey 
was more cautiously active than ever. He kept his 
men at almost constant target practice, and busied him¬ 
self in getting very accurate information concerning 
the entrances to Manila’s harbor: the depth of the 
water, the position of the mines and forts, and the 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


79 


state of the tides, currents and winds. The plan of 
attack was formed almost to the minute. “I had 
finally made up my mind,” he wrote, with a touch of 
exaggeration perhaps, after the fight was over, “that 
the battle would be fought right here that very morning 
at the same hour with nearly the same position of 
opposing ships. That is why and how ... we kept 
our position without mistake or interruption until the 
enemy’s ships were practically destroyed.” At last, 
on April 25, came the welcome news that war had 
been declared and that “You must capture or destroy.” 
Snapping his jaws together, Dewey said, “Thank the 
Lord, at last I’ve got the chance and I’ll wipe them 
off the Pacific.” On the 27th, his fleet steamed out of 
Hong Kong, while British sailors, soldiers and civilians 
swarmed along the shore and wharves, and shouted, 
“Good luck to you! Smash the Dons!” 

As the American ships crept slowly and cautiously 
along the six hundred miles of sea that separated them 
from Manila and the chance to smash the Dons, for 
the last time the men were drilled in their duties, all 
superfluous woodwork was cut away, and the sides 
and ammunition hoists of the vessels were protected 
with heavy sheet chains. Luzon was sighted on the 
morning of April 30, and that night, under the shelter 
of the dark, the boats glided stealthily along within 
reach of the unsuspecting Spanish guns on the shore. 
It was a typically tropical night; at times the new 
moon broke through the clouds, only to be followed by 
occasional showers and continuous flashes of sheet 
lightning. The men, few of whom had ever been 
under fire, showed the nervous tension they felt in 




8 o 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


various ways: one of them sang the lilting verses of 
“Sweet Marie” with maddening monotony; a young 
officer, noted for a refinement of language seldom 
observed among his associates, swore the most extrava¬ 
gant oaths to himself; still another calmly read long 
passages from the Bible, notably the thirteenth chapter 
of First Corinthians. The Commodore himself under¬ 
went a distressing and humiliating experience. At four 
A. M. his Chinese servant brought him hot coffee and 
hardtack, which refused to blend properly with the 
huge quantities of cold tea he had been swallowing 
—perhaps because the hardtack supplied to the Ameri¬ 
can fighters was, by official fiat, individually decorated 
with the catchword remember the Maine; for the 
government had thought it advisable that the military 
forces should never forget, not even at mealtime, the 
high purposes for which they were fighting. Whatever 
was responsible for his embarrassment, Dewey soon 
suffered a violent attack of mal de mer; but we are 
assured that “the opening guns of the battle did a 
great deal to restore his good humor.” However 
true that may have been, between the intervals of his 
griping spells his mind was busy with such incongruities 
as the resemblance of the dark, slightly moon-lighted 
hills back of Manila to those around his Vermont 
home, and the conviction that he was doing exactly 
what Farragut would have done (Farragut, whose 
apothegm Dewey was turning over and over in his 
mind: “The best protection against an enemy’s fire is 
a well-directed fire of your own”). 

When the hazy tropical dawn by degrees made the 
position of the Asiatic Squadron clear to the eyes 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


81 


of the astonished Spaniards, the shore batteries imme¬ 
diately fired the opening guns of the impending battle; 
and at once the Olympia sent up a string of flags bear¬ 
ing the code slogan “Remember the Maine.” At last, 
when his fleet had approached so that only three miles 
separated it from the Spanish boats at Cavite, the 
Commodore turned to his captain and said, “You may 
fire when you’re ready, Gridley.” He gave this order 
earlier than he had intended, but the morale of his 
men was beginning to weaken under the flight of hos¬ 
tile shells that hissed and spluttered around them. 
Five times the American vessels circled in front of the 
Spanish, hurling broadside after broadside at the 
enemy, while in the sizzling heat of the gun-turrets 
the American gunners, naked to the waist, responded 
mechanically to the incessant command: “Sponge!” 
“Load!” “Point!” “Fire!” Their marksmanship was 
very poor at first (“damnable,” the Commodore called 
it), but it steadily improved. Dewey’s instructions and 
remarks throughout the conflict were not, in fact, 
nearly so complimentary to his men as was his official 
report. At one time he commanded his signal-man to 
instruct the Baltimore to come closer; as the man de¬ 
layed, Dewey ripped out, “What’s the matter with the 

-man ? Is the-a- 

coward? Tell the- Baltimore to close 

up! - him, tell him to close up!” But in the 

signal-book was written the colorless entry, “Please 
close up.” “Profanity in the navy, particularly on 
the part of officers,” wrote Dewey in his memoirs, 
“was a relic of the days of grog and boarding with 












82 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


the cutlass”; but he was at that time more than three¬ 
score and ten. 

When the fray had lengthened two hours, Dewey 
received a message that chilled his blood—he was told 
that the ammunition was giving out. What could he 
do? Only one thing—he could withdraw temporarily 
from the engagement and discover if the report was 
true; but it would never do to let his men know the 
real reason for standing off in the midst of action. 
Orders were therefore given that the ships were to be 
withdrawn and that breakfast was to be served. When 
the American papers heard of this, they interpreted 
it to mean that Dewey was so nonchalantly sure of 
victory, and so kind to his men, that he had decided 
to give them a brief breathing and eating time before 
returning to complete the destruction of the enemy. 
But the men themselves objected; they were now hot 
for the annihilation of the Spanish craft, none of 
which thus far appeared much injured because they 
were concealed by billows of smoke that swirled every¬ 
where; and gloom, heavy and black as the smoke itself, 
descended on the deck of the Olympia when Dewey 
gave his command to stop fighting, to withdraw, and 
to eat. Eat? In the heart of the fray? They 
shouted, “To hell with breakfast!” Nevertheless, the 
order was executed. The Commodore was unspeak¬ 
ably relieved to learn that a mistake had been made 
and that there was plenty of ammunition; but the 
legend of the cool, intrepid commander, who could 
play with the enemy as a cat plays with a mouse, had 
been founded and it remained secure. 

Some three hours later, at about eleven o’clock, 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


83 


back came the American fleet, and in a little more than 
an hour the victory was won; every Spanish vessel 
engaged in action had sunk or was burning. When 
the news reached America, the public went hysterical 
with joy. Dewey was at once made a Rear-Admiral 
by the President; and Congress gave his men a vote 
of thanks. Thousands of people actually became suf¬ 
ficiently interested in history to dig up information 
which proved to their complete satisfaction that Dewey 
had won a greater victory than Farragut—than any 
other American naval commander—nay, a greater than 
Nelson himself. Their enthusiasm might have been 
tempered somewhat had they known, as Dewey had 
known before the battle, that Montojo’s squadron 
was mainly a paper force, that he possessed only two 
ships of over fifteen hundred tons while Dewey had 
five of greater tonnage, that the Spanish guns had 
but one-third the striking power of the American, 
that Montojo’s best and biggest ship, the Reina 
Cristina, was old and had inferior armament, and that 
his ship next in size, the Castella, was almost incapaci¬ 
tated by a leaky hull and worn-out boilers, which, when 
they chose to work at all, shook the hull so that it 
leaked worse than ever. Had the Americans known 
also that Dewey waited two days after war was de¬ 
clared before sailing from Hong Kong to engage the 
Spaniards, and that he had sailed only after the report 
of the American Consul at Manila had convinced him 
that, because of the unpreparedness of the enemy, he 
was practically certain to win, it is possible that the 
hero-worship which was lavished upon him might not 
have bordered upon national insanity. It is known 





8 4 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


that, in ancient days, when Zeus and all his incestuous 
progeny except Poseidon had decided to befriend 
Odysseus, they resorted to all manner of tricky devices 
to make him appear beautiful, strong and youthful, 
as the greatest man of a nation should appear—a man 
who was incidentally an expert debauchee and a spoiler 
of cities. Why, then, should not modern gods, in the 
shape of politicians, press censors, editors, spies and 
other admirable beings have so manipulated events 
that Dewey, who was at least as crafty as Odysseus, 
should be raised to the apex of popularity? 

Certain Americans, in fact, took a loftier view. The 
bishops of the Methodist Church, in session during 
May, expressed their confidence “in the wisdom, abil¬ 
ity, and exalted character of President McKinley,” 
and passed the resolution, “That we render most 
hearty thanks to God for the victory He has vouch¬ 
safed to our arms at Manila.” Dewey himself was of 
much the same mind. When it was suggested to him, 
some four months after the battle, that the hand of 
God had turned aside the Spanish shells at Manila, 
he feelingly replied, “I believe it, I believe it. . . . It 
is easier to believe that than it is to believe that so 
many shells could have missed us from simple human 
inaccuracy of fire. . . . God knows where all the 
shells went . . . the Lord meant to punish Spain for 
her years of wickedness and misrule in these 
islands. ... It was the judgment of God.” The 
Deity, to be sure, had allowed several Spanish shells 
to penetrate the hull of the Olympia, while a larger 
number had injured her rigging, and the other Ameri¬ 
can boats, together with a few men, had been slightly 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


85 


harmed; but doubtless these minor injuries were per¬ 
mitted by the Almighty as a warning of the great dis¬ 
aster that might have fallen had not the purposes of 
the American government been wholly different from 
those of Spain. 

IV 

From Dewey’s victory to the time when active hos¬ 
tilities against the Filipinos began, constitutes a period 
in which gigantic and conflicting forces were at work. 
It is impossible to estimate with accuracy the power, 
the constitution, and the direction of all those forces; 
they were largely subterranean. The policy of Wash¬ 
ington at that time has not had, and doubtless never 
will have, the full light of publicity thrown upon it; 
not until 1902 was an investigation instituted in which 
the dominant figures in the war were compelled to 
break silence and tell, however haltingly and un¬ 
willingly, something about what had really occurred. 
By redundant evasions, by tautological sentimentalities, 
by crafty machinations, by lies more or less skillfully 
concealed in Victorian verbosity—in brief, by definitely 
adopting the governmental methods of Europe, and in 
particular the tactics of Great Britain, the United 
States became a colonizing nation. A strikingly perti¬ 
nent and illustrious example of these methods may be 
observed in America’s acquisition of the Hawaiian 
Islands. Until the coming of war with Spain, all 
efforts to annex them had been unsuccessful; indeed, 
in 1894 the Senate had adopted this resolution: 
“Resolved, That of right it belongs wholly to the 
people of the Hawaiian Islands to establish and main- 




86 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


tain their own form of government and domestic 
policy; that the United States ought in nowise to inter¬ 
fere therewith. . . In 1897 an d the early months 
of 1898, the Republicans had tried without success to 
revive the annexation idea, and their failure marked a 
temporary lull in such activities. Then came Dewey’s 
smashing victory; and it was followed, strangely 
enough, by a vigorous rebirth of that idea. The Sen¬ 
ate voted viva voce to discuss the question of annexa¬ 
tion behind closed doors; and, under a joint resolution 
of both Houses of Congress, the islands were annexed 
early in July. The consent of the inhabitants of those 
islands was naturally not required; the United States 
dealt wholly with a de facto oligarchical form of 
government, which represented a foreign element that 
was principally American. When the annexation took 
place, the natives disappeared from the streets that 
they might not see the passing of their flag; the native 
band threw away its instruments, refusing to play the 
simple and melodious strains of the “Star Spangled 
Banner.” But, after all, the natives were dying out 
very fast under the benefits of civilization, and so who 
cared for their feelings? A link—a portentous link 
—in the golden chain of islands that spanned the 
Pacific, from California to the gates of the dazzling 
and luxuriant East, had been forged; and the welding 
of the remaining links was in strong and capable hands. 

In the confusion of shifty diplomacy that followed 
the Battle of Manila, Admiral Dewey was almost cer¬ 
tainly the strongest stabilizing force. Not only did 
he make it possible by his deeds for the government 
to effect its sly purposes and wily decisions; he was 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


87 


one of the most powerful actors in shaping those pur¬ 
poses and decisions. Outwardly, he was merely the 
blunt, aggressive military man whose duty was to do 
what his government commanded; in reality, he gave 
hints and suggestions of policies which that govern¬ 
ment often followed, and, in truth, eagerly sought. 
How sharply defined those aims were in Dewey’s mind, 
or when faint suggestions of the course he later fol¬ 
lowed first came to him, must remain unknown. Per¬ 
haps Dewey himself did not know. Like most oppor¬ 
tunists, he was not prone to reflect but to act on im¬ 
pulse—very much as the opportunist government 
under which he served also acted. Was it merely un¬ 
conscious prescience that impelled him to say, as he 
left Hong Kong to sail for Manila, “If we win the 
first fight of this war, it will have a remarkable effect 
upon our people. . . . The very name of the Philip¬ 
pines recalls memories of the old Spanish galleons, 
with their cargoes of new and precious spices, their 
tales of uncounted wealth awaiting the adventurer and 
the buccaneer, and all the mystery of the Far East”? 
Did the shade of Captain Kidd whisper in his ear the 
words “the adventurer and the buccaneer”? What¬ 
ever he may have thought, hoped, or believed, or 
whether it was an “irresistible decree of Providence” 
(as McKinley so often said) that drove him on, there 
is little doubt that he was much pleased to be driven. 
Anyhow, there were specific things to be done, and he 
hastened to do them. 

At three o’clock on the day of Dewey’s triumph, 
the British Consul at Manila came on board the 
Olympia, to request that the city should not be bom- 






88 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


barded. The Admiral had no intention of attacking 
at that time; but it occurred to him that he might use 
this fear of the inhabitants in driving a bargain to get 
some of the coal in the harbor. Although the 
Governor General of Manila refused to give up any 
coal, it was arranged that the city should not be fired 
on so long as the shore batteries did not fire at the 
American ships; and Dewey solaced himself by com¬ 
mandeering, from British, German, and other vessels 
in the harbor, some coal which he paid for after it 
was safe in his holds. The Governor General also 
refused to grant Dewey the privilege of using the 
cable that stretched from Manila to Hong Kong; the 
doughty Admiral straightway cut the cable, and sent 
the official dispatch of his victory by a special boat to 
Hong Kong, whence it was relayed to America. Mc¬ 
Kinley, however, refused to believe that Dewey had 
cut the cable. It was stated, in a dispatch from Wash¬ 
ington to the New York World, that the President 
“regards that piece of malicious vandalism as char¬ 
acteristically Spanish.” On the evening of that memor¬ 
able day, curious crowds gathered along the shore, 
sat on the very batteries that had been in action that 
morning, and gazed in wondering and respectful ad¬ 
miration at the victorious fleet, while the Olympia’s 
band played Spanish airs for their amusement. 

And now began the forging of other links in that 
chain of events which was already impressively long— 
a forging that did not cease until the chain encircled 
with its Laocoon folds a whole archipelago of islands. 
The circumstances attending the next few months gave 
rise to all those conflicting reports which made the 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


89 


United States seethe with excitement, with nasty per¬ 
sonal recriminations, with ferocious cross-currents of 
political hatreds, and with whispered insinuations and 
slanders which were often altogether true. The im¬ 
perialists and the anti-imperialists became supplied 
with quantities of ammunition so ample that the nation 
rocked from its blasts and counter-blasts for several 
years. At a later day it may be possible to make a 
discriminating selection from the mass of official cor¬ 
respondence, and from the vastly more instructive un¬ 
official comments on affairs, that will conduce to an un¬ 
partisan appraisal of what was vital and what was 
irrelevant in the words and deeds of that time. To 
investigate even recent history is baffling and unsatis¬ 
factory enough; for the facts that are indisputable 
constitute but a little island surrounded by an illimit¬ 
able, untracked ocean of ignorance—a little hut encom¬ 
passed by a howling wilderness. But the island and 
the hut are at all events of perennial interest; and per¬ 
haps, if one takes an occasional flight on the wings of 
imagination, one may get a faint glimpse of the gen¬ 
eral contour of the ocean and the nature of the wilder¬ 
ness. 

The steps by which the United States approached 
the forcible annexation of the Philippines (a policy 
which McKinley had characterized, in his message to 
Congress on April 11, 1898, as one that “by our code 
of morality would be criminal aggression”; a policy 
against which he had warned the nation in his in¬ 
augural address, with the words “the temptation of 
territorial aggression”), and by which it was led to 
take part in what John Morley termed an “imperial- 




90 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


istic rake’s progress,” are occasionally halting and 
broken; yet it is not wholly impossible to trace them. 
The path begins to grow distinct at the point where 
Admiral Dewey sought the assistance of the Filipino 
insurgents, led by Aguinaldo. It is doubtless true that 
the actual leader of the Filipinos, until May, 1899, 
was Mabini—a man who had paralyzed legs but an 
abnormally active mind, whose chief study was the 
French Revolution, and who threw himself, despite 
his useless legs, with the enthusiasm of a Patrick 
Henry into the cause of Filipino independence, but 
who himself lurked in the background and probably 
wrote many of the documents signed by Aguinaldo. 
Nevertheless, whoever it was that caused the natives 
to fight for freedom, Aguinaldo was the figure-head— 
a sort of human gadfly, who at times drove Dewey, 
and indeed a Republican administration, almost frantic 
with impotent rage. The son of a common planter, 
he was educated at the University of Manila, became 
the protege of a Jesuit priest, studied medicine, got 
himself into trouble with the Spanish authorities at 
Manila in 1888, and then went to Hong Kong where 
he became skilled in military affairs, languages and 
diplomacy. This “soft-spoken, unimpressive little 
man,” as Dewey characterized him, radiated such 
personal magnetism that he soon had the Filipinos at 
his feet. He played such a conspicuous part in the 
Filipino rebellion against the Spanish Friars in 1896- 
1897, ^at the Spanish government was only too glad 
to pay him $400,000 in order to keep him away from 
the Philippines. But at Hong Kong and Singapore he 
was still busy planning schemes for the liberation of his 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


9i 


country; so that, when the American Consul General at 
Singapore held a secret interview with him and prom¬ 
ised him that, in return for his aid in giving to Dewey 
the assistance of the Filipino insurgents against the 
Spaniards, the Philippines would be granted virtually 
the same terms of independence which the United 
States had already granted Cuba, he accepted the offer. 
On April 24, Pratt, the Consul General, wired Dewey 
that Aguinaldo would arrange with him “for general 
cooperation insurgents Manila if desired.” The 
Admiral at once replied, “Tell Aguinaldo come soon 
as possible.” On April 27, Pratt informed the State 
Department that he had been instrumental in sending 
Aguinaldo to “arrange with Dewey cooperation insur¬ 
gents Manila”; yet not until May 26 did the govern¬ 
ment advise Dewey that it was not expedient to make 
political alliances with the insurgents, although it had 
known for nearly a month that a practical, if not tech¬ 
nical, alliance had actually been made, and had had 
plenty of time to warn Dewey against making such 
an arrangement. Perhaps the government was so 
delighted over Dewey’s victory at Manila that it neg¬ 
lected to notice the dangerous possibilities of the situ¬ 
ation; is it possible that its leaders may have decided 
conveniently to overlook the rapprochement until a 
naval victory had been definitely won? 

At any rate, these events were curious—so much so 
that, from June 26 to 28, 1902, a Senate Committee, 
which was investigating the conduct of the war, called 
Admiral Dewey to testify. The gentlemen who quizzed 
him were fortunately skilled in the methods of Soc¬ 
rates; as a result, before the investigation was con- 




92 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


eluded Dewey had contradicted and double-crossed 
himself with amusing irrelevance. Eventually he lost 
his temper and, after being led into a morass of incon¬ 
sistent replies, flared out with such bursts as “I can’t 
answer that,” or “I didn’t like your questions yester¬ 
day and I don’t like them today.” He admitted that 
he had welcomed Aguinaldo’s aid, because “I wanted 
his help, you know”; that he had given Aguinaldo 
Mauser rifles and ammunition; that he had encouraged 
Aguinaldo to organize an army which he had permitted, 
and even urged, to help invest Manila; and yet, before 
he left the witness stand, he vigorously stated, apropos 
of the insurgents, “I did not want them.” Asked as to 
his opinion of Aguinaldo’s character, Dewey replied 
that he believed the insurgent chief had been interested 
merely in plunder and pillage; when questioned as to 
what logical or patriotic motive had caused him to en¬ 
courage a plunderer and pillager to organize an assist¬ 
ing army whose help he himself did not desire, the Ad¬ 
miral at first countered with the remark, “You know 
the old saying that all things are fair in war.” When 
pressed for a more definite answer, he snapped, “I 
won’t answer that!” Curiously enough, when requested 
to give any proof that Aguinaldo was a plunderer or 
pillager, Dewey was unable to give it. 

However confused his mind may have been when 
he faced the Senators, Admiral Dewey seems to have 
pursued a remarkably clear line of action in the sum¬ 
mer of 1898—a double-faced policy, it may be, but 
none the less clear. When dealing with the insurgents, 
he would cajole and flatter them so that he might 
keep their assistance; when cabling to Washington, he 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


would tell as much truth about his relations with the 
insurgents as he saw fit, and he would continue to 
throw out hints concerning the acquisition of .the 
Philippines. On May 13 he wired, “I can take Manila 
at any moment. To retain possession and thus control 
the Philippine Islands would require, in my best judg¬ 
ment, well-equipped force of 5,000 men.” He met 
Aguinaldo for the first time in May 19, and, in the 
interview which followed, the Filipino leader later 
swore that Dewey told him he “must have no doubt 
concerning the recognition of Philippine independence 
on the part of the United States.” This is Aguinaldo’s 
own story, and the Admiral himself denied its truth 
several times; and yet, when one remembers his evasive 
testimony—! The State Department finally asked him 
to be a little more definite concerning his dealings with 
Aguinaldo; and on June 27 Dewey replied: “I have 
given him to understand that I consider insurgents as 
friends, being opposed to a common enemy . . . 
[Aguinaldo] has kept me advised of his progress, 
which has been wonderful . . . Have frequently ad¬ 
vised to conduct the war humanely, which he has done 
invariably.” The pillager and plunderer, it appears, 
was at that time behaving pretty well. A little pre¬ 
viously, on June 12, Dewey had sent the Secretary of 
the Navy proclamations printed by Aguinaldo, in which 
he stated that the “great and powerful North Amer¬ 
ican nation has come to offer disinterested protection 
to secure the liberty of this country”; and on July 4 he 
informed Washington that “Aguinaldo proclaimed 
himself president of the revolutionary republic on July 
1”; yet, testifying to the Senate Committee he said that, 





94 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


until July 15, he “never dreamed that they [the Fili¬ 
pinos] wanted independence.” On July 21, he re¬ 
quested General Anderson not to make public a protest 
against Aguinaldo’s proclamation that he was dictator 
of the Philippines—manifestly, one supposes, because 
he still desired to keep Aguinaldo’s aid and friendship, 
rather than because he did not know that the Filipinos 
wished to be free. 

In truth, Dewey’s position at this time was not any 
too secure. Through May and June he feared the 
coming of a second fleet from Spain, under Cervera, 
and finally, on June 27, he cabled Washington that, if 
the coast of Spain were threatened, the enemy’s squad¬ 
ron would be compelled to remain at home. The gov¬ 
ernment took the suggestion and the newspapers did 
the rest; Spain learnt by flaming American headlines 
that the country was preparing to bombard her coast, 
and she experienced almost as great fright as the cities 
on the eastern coast of the United States had been suf¬ 
fering from since the first days of the war. Indeed, 
they had clamored so piteously for protection that the 
government organized a Flying Squadron which soon 
put to flight the peoples’ fears at least, so that they 
breathed easily once more and again took up the 
pleasant task of hurling venomous remarks at the 
enemy 3,000 miles away, without danger of suffering 
retributive justice. Dewey was henceforth at ease a\ 
far as another Spanish fleet was concerned; but he had 
numerous problems to meet, which required a good 
deal of energy and diplomacy. His tilt with Admiral 
von Diederich, which caused so much discussion at the 
time, and which was eagerly revived twenty years later 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


95 


as triumphant evidence of Germany’s perpetual vin¬ 
dictiveness, was even at that early day magnified by 
a highly chauvinistic American press; since we had 
whipped such a powerful nation as Spain, might it not 
be well, also, to demonstrate our superiority over some 
other nation? The Admiral himself kept a good-sized 
chip perched on his shoulder during the summer at 
Manila, and, having the right of authority, tended to 
display it for the sake of exhibitionism. To a Euro¬ 
pean, Dewey’s ostensible friendship with the Filipinos 
must have seemed to indicate that the United States 
had no particular intention of assuming control over 
them; and at a time when the leading European nations, 
3 y devices more than tricky, were gobbling up as much 
bf the Orient as they could swallow, it was little won¬ 
der if Germany, who had gorged considerably less ter¬ 
ritory than France and England, had decided to take a 
peck at the appetizing Philippine morsel before some 
Dther nation had voraciously preceded her at the feast. 

But, although Dewey’s labors and worries during 
that eventful summer were many and vexatious, for 
the sake of his not very robust health he occasionally 
banished all of them and sought refreshing relaxation 
\n various ways. On the Olympia’s deck, while his dog 
Bob, a waif he had picked up on the streets of Manila, 
frisked lovingly around him, he passed many pleasant 
hours in strolling, his quick, springy step making him 
easily recognizable at some distance. One thing every 
day he would have—his afternoon nap from two to 
four o’clock, for he was a light sleeper; and only prob¬ 
lems of the most compelling urgency made him forego 
this luxury. He loved to recline at ease on the deck 




96 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


when the weather was salubrious, playing, at times with 
almost childish abandon, with the ship’s mascot—a 
monkey, which the Admiral petted and coaxed to show 
off its absurd capers and undignified tricks. As he 
tickled and stroked the little beast, affectionately say¬ 
ing, “Oh you little beauty,” while it grimaced and 
leered in his face, his thoughts often wandered to his 
far-off country, which waited with outstretched arms 
to fondle its newly-acquired pet hero. But even then 
he was not entirely without the solace of adulation; 
some of the army officers at Manila had wives. At 
first these ladies were not very numerous; for, while 
the War Department was anxious that their husbands 
should not lose all the stabilizing influences of do¬ 
mesticity in a strange environment, the husbands them¬ 
selves, through their chief commanders, continued to 
send statements that the women were better off at 
home, that Manila and its environs, for social and 
other reasons, was no place for them, and that, for 
social and other reasons, the men were quite contented 
as they were. But a few ladies were in the city and 
they wished to see and congratulate the Admiral. He 
was not able to satisfy them all, but it is written that 
“those who were fortunate enough to meet him re¬ 
turned with reports that made their less fortunate sis¬ 
ters most envious.” Dewey was, indeed, fond of 
women, particularly, and naturally enough, of those 
who were vivacious and handsome. Having been ad¬ 
vised one day that the wives of two officers were 
burning with desire to see him, he quickly responded, 
“Why, certainly; but, by the way, are they pretty and 
clever?” When assured that they were the prettiest 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


97 


and cleverest women in Manila, he hastened to say, 
‘‘Very good! . . . you can have a launch to bring off 
two pretty women.” In the seclusion of his simply 
furnished cabin, the most prominent photograph was 
that of a young and beautiful girl, who had asked for 
his autograph and had sent her picture in payment; 
and so deeply did the Admiral consider himself her 
debtor that he frequently came near cutting himself, 
as he rasped away at his beard with this charming but 
distracting figure continually catching his eyes. Those 
who were admitted to privacy with him in this cabin 
were unfailingly asked to take one of the good Havana 
cigars, of which, because of his forethought, he had a 
good supply. As he smoked and discussed weighty 
matters with his visitors, his long, thin fingers would 
make rapid and nervous gestures of emphasis; and 
when especially deep in thought, he would rub them 
over his eyes with an undulating movement, or pull, 
twist and stroke in turn the curling ends of his silvery 
mustache. Or, in lighter moods, he was accustomed 
to display some of the voluminous gifts that admirers 
had sent him, fondling them over and over with the 
unconcealed delight of a child playing with its toys; 
again, he exhibited parental sentimentality over the 
letters of his son George, which he always asked for 
and opened with fingers trembling in eagerness before 
he had even glanced at the rest of his huge mail. 

Still, he had comparatively little time for such 
trivialities, for there was work to be done. Manila 
was not yet taken; and his troubles and cares about 
the Spaniards yet in control there, and the insurgents 
who wanted to be in control, were almost as horrendous 




98 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


and prickly as the pompadoured hair on Aguinaldo’s 
head. The cables between Dewey and Washington 
quivered that summer with scores of questions and re¬ 
sponses, and with carefully worded but more and more 
precise suggestions as to the attitude which should be 
assumed toward the insurgents, after the Spaniards 
had been ousted from control. Both Dewey and the 
government moved quietly and cautiously, throwing 
out a tentative feeler now and then—but they con¬ 
tinued to move. The government stilled the fears 
aroused among its citizens when transport after trans¬ 
port, loaded with troops, began to depart for the Phil¬ 
ippines, by stating that they were necessary to protect 
Dewey and aid in the capture of Manila; at the same 
time, through its several mouthpieces—the press and 
the speeches of McKinley and his counselors—it per¬ 
sisted in subtly circulating increasingly frequent re¬ 
minders of the inscrutable destiny which had put upon 
the United States the duty of becoming its weaker 
brothers’ keeper. Gradually, almost imperceptibly as 
the months passed, the feeling grew stronger that the 
Philippines must indeed be kept—but not for hope of 
material gain—oh, no, not for that; they must be kept 
as a trust from on high, a grievous burden, assumed 
only because the divine will had so commanded. If, 
in turn, the divine will had so arranged matters that 
the islands aroused entrancing visions of material gain 
in the guise of imports from them and raw materials 
shipped to them, was the government to be chided for 
that? It was all a part of God’s will; what could a 
religious people do but follow the beck of the Om¬ 
niscient hand? For if, as a Cabinet Member stated, 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


99 


“Philanthropy and five per cent, go hand in hand,” 
Providence had obviously intended that they should 
thus lovingly stroll through fresh woods and pas¬ 
tures new. 

Such, at least, were the intentions of the McKinley 
Administration, although some may feel disposed to 
query whether it expected to be satisfied with a paltry 
five per cent. But in order that those expectations 
might be realized, troops had to be freighted to Manila 
—a duty that fell to the Secretary of War, Russell A. 
Alger, whose character and rise to power were typically 
and inspiringly democratic. As a youth, he had fought 
in the Civil War, had eventually been recommended for 
dishonorable discharge by Generals Sheridan, Custer 
and others, but had later been reinstated in the army. 
Indeed, he had risen to the supreme position of Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, 
and had also won the lesser glory of election to the 
governorship of Michigan. During these profitable 
years he was steadily accumulating an enormous for¬ 
tune through his interests in the lumber business, and 
was one of the leaders in the formation and control of 
the Diamond Match Company, an organization which 
sought to monopolize the manufacture and sale of fric¬ 
tion matches in the United States and Canada. Un¬ 
luckily, the supreme court of Michigan held that this 
enterprise was unlawful and contrary to public wel¬ 
fare; nevertheless, Alger was now wealthy and was 
thus drawn—how could he have helped it?—into the 
whirlpool of politics, in which he found a remunerative 
outlet for a portion of his money by paying the debts of 
ex-Governor Foster of Ohio. Foster, still a power in 



> * ^ 





100 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


his state, insinuated to McKinley that Mark Hanna 
would not be permitted to become Senator unless Alger 
was given a high place in the Republican cohorts. Be¬ 
sides, Alger had expended still more of his fortune in 
the supreme cause of McKinley’s election; and so, for 
perfectly adequate reasons, he was made Secretary of 
War. It cannot be said that he adorned his office— 
his carefully groomed figure and his unimpressive face, 
with its weak chin partially concealed by a scanty gray 
goatee, would have adorned no particular office or 
position, save possibly that of floorwalker in an indus¬ 
trial establishment—but, what was more to the point, 
he held it—for two years. It is conceivable that he 
might have been less efficient and resolute than he was; 
but the conception is appalling. Throughout the war, 
the army was managed in a way that suggested a state 
of hilarious and intemperate anarchy; an excellent ob¬ 
server who was in the army during the war stated that 
its organization and general activities reminded him of 
nothing else than a jovial week-end party or a picnic 
in the woods. Poultney Bigelow, a competent witness, 
recorded his observations thus: “Men were transported 
like cattle, or rather like freight—not even as perish¬ 
able live stock . . . There was no such brutal treat¬ 
ment of soldiers by Germany in her [1870] war.” 
Men in authority at army camps naturally denied such 
statements—what else could they do? Transportation 
on water was even worse than on land. The transports 
were overcrowded and the troops failed to recognize 
the rigid necessity of heeding sanitary measures. As 
a consequence, in at least one case, “it was simply im¬ 
possible to keep the quarters below deck in a cleanly 
condition. . . . The men spat on the deck, threw waste 






ADMIRAL DEWEY 


IOI 


food on deck, and defecated there without regard to 
the expostulations of the officers of the transport”; 
but, plainly, the officers themselves were perfectly well- 
behaved. There was no change of clothing for the men, 
and their garments soon became infested with “gray- 
backs.” The authorities, through amiable but mis¬ 
directed kindness of heart, tried to remedy this imme¬ 
morial human affliction; but that they failed miserably 
an excerpt from an official report, remarkable for its 
rare ingenuousness, will testify: “a number of men 
have not a single garment of underclothing, the steam¬ 
ing process resorted to in the steamer to kill the vermin 
having destroyed the clothing.” The fate of the 
vermin must still remain in doubt. In this environ¬ 
ment, distinguished by a democracy and consan¬ 
guinity which were enjoyed by all quick beings on the 
ship, the troops stayed until they were unloaded at 
Manila. 

Their arrival was a welcome sight to Admiral 
Dewey, for events were now moving with celerity; not 
so much the Spanish forces as the ever-increasing insur¬ 
gent hordes were causing him often to abandon his 
cherished afternoon nap. Aguinaldo was becoming sus¬ 
picious of the benevolent intentions of the Americans; 
he was particularly mistrustful after he had seen a re¬ 
port in a New York paper of May 5, which stated that 
it was the intention of the government to hold the 
Philippines “under ransom to the United States until 
Spain shall pay the war indemnity.” He might have 
been more than suspicious had he seen a statement 
which the government quietly obtained from a gentle¬ 
man who had spent four years in Manila, transacting 
business for an American firm: “it seems reasonable to 






102 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


suppose that they [the Filipinos] would help the Amer¬ 
ican troops, and that, with the Spaniards once con¬ 
quered, we should have no trouble in bringing the 
natives into subjection.” Reasonable enough, no doubt; 
but, as it proved, a little more troublesome than had 
been anticipated. General Anderson had, to be sure, 
written Aguinaldo appropriately on July 4: “I desire 
to have most amicable relations with you, and to have 
you and your people cooperate with us in the military 
operations against the Spanish forces”; but on July 21, 
unknown to Aguinaldo, he sent word to Washington 
that “These people only respect force and firmness.” 
Aguinaldo might, furthermore, have come to distrust 
American veracity completely if he had been privy to a 
message which the State Department had sent to Con¬ 
sul Pratt on June 16: “The United States . . . will 
expect from the Filipino inhabitants . . . that obedi¬ 
ence which will be lawfully due from them.” Can it 
be that the government was groping blindly, or did it 
know precisely what it was doing in publicly professing 
friendship for the insurgents and in privately planning 
to control them? 

No matter which theory was true, Manila now be¬ 
came invested with insurgents, and with American 
troops who bravely held their lines three-fourths of a 
mile behind the Filipino soldiers. “Thanks to their ad¬ 
vance,” wrote Dewey, “we were able to land our troops 
within easy striking distance of their objective.” The 
Americans, headed by General Merritt, began to attack 
the city on August 13; and the Colorado regimental 
band, as it splashed through the muddy marshes along 
the coast, played the prophetic air, “There’ll Be A Hot 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


103 


Time in the Old Town Tonight.” Within a few hours 
the city capitulated, and the soldiers and sailors who 
took possession of it before nightfall successfully ful¬ 
filled the prediction expressed in the song. The news 
of Manila’s capture added to the now general joy in 
America, and Admiral Dewey, who had made the cap¬ 
ture possible and had stood by to assist with his fleet if 
it should be necessary, received his share—a full share 
it was—of the praise. The taking of the city had been 
pictured as a very dangerous exploit; Dewey, indeed, 
had waited several months for troops; and the whole 
affair was thus decorously surrounded with the 
romance of suspense and hazard. Such was and prob¬ 
ably still is the general public impression; but in this 
case it happens, unlike most general public impres¬ 
sions, to be wrong. Dewey’s unwillingly given Senate 
testimony is again revealing: after squirming for a 
time, he admitted that “there was to be no real battle, 
as the Spaniards were not to fire.” When it was sug¬ 
gested to him that the public, and the government 
itself, had not known this, he countered with the ir¬ 
relevant—perhaps not wholly irrelevant—reply, “I 
know there are a great many things that are not given 
to the public.” Pressed still further, he said that the 
American forces had “killed a few people” in order to 
give an impression of sincerity to the battle. What 
happened was this: the Governor General of Manila 
had connived with Dewey so that both Spain and the 
United States would never suspect that the battle was 
largely a sham; thus the Governor General had saved 
himself from the disgrace of court martial for cow¬ 
ardice, and the Admiral had made the luster of his 




104 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


scintillating reputation sparkle a bit more brilliantly 
still. 

But sheer good fortune, as well as Dewey’s own 
shrewdness, was responsible for much of that new bril¬ 
liancy. The peace protocol between the United States 
and Spain, which called for the immediate cessation of 
hostilities, had been signed on the 12th of August. 
But, because of the malicious vandalism which had 
caused the destruction of the cable, this informa¬ 
tion did not reach Manila until August 16; had the 
cable been intact there would not have been even a 
simulated capture of Manila, and Spanish sovereignty 
in the Philippines would thus have remained unim¬ 
paired when the war ended. Spain naturally insisted 
that the occupation of Manila should be viewed in the 
light of the protocol signed on August 12, and not in 
the light of the capitulation of the city on August 13, 
a day after the war was concluded by the peace pro¬ 
tocol; but the United States, just as naturally, was un¬ 
able to concur in this opinion—it interpreted suspension 
of hostilities to mean the date on which the various 
military leaders received such notice, rather than the 
date on which the notice was sent. It was, of course, 
too bad that the cable had been destroyed, since that 
act was responsible for the unfortunate capture of 
Manila and the consequent termination there of Span¬ 
ish rule; but after all, since it had been cut, there was 
certainly no adequate reason why the United States 
should be deprived of any advantage that might follow 
from that dastardly deed. Besides, if Spain had not 
surrendered, Manila would have been taken anyway, so 
what difference did it make? It was a mere trifle, and 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


105 


Spain, being a confessedly defeated nation, could not 
expect to be favored even with trifles. Such appear 
to have been the processes of reasoning by which the 
government rightfully insisted that Spanish sovereignty 
in the Philippines had been ended before the war had 
closed; and the way was thus clear for the demand, on 
the part of the Peace Commissioners, for the cession 
of the whole group of islands to the United States, 
inasmuch as Spain’s rule throughout all those islands 
was completely finished. To be sure, it was true that, 
when the Allies destroyed the Russian fleet at Sebasto¬ 
pol, they did not demand Crimea; that, when Nelson 
slaughtered the Danish fleet, he made no claim upon 
Denmark, and that, when he won at Trafalgar, he 
did not insist that Spain should become a British col¬ 
ony—he merely sailed away. But America’s position 
was different; the Filipinos had to be civilized and 
Christianized, and, therefore, sublime duty forbade 
that Dewey should sail away. In fact, since Spain 
herself was barely civilized (for prominent Americans 
of high moral caliber had declared that her people 
were “barbarians,” and that she herself was “outside 
the pale of civilization”), she ought to thank her stars 
that America did not intend to take possession of her 
as well. 

In the negotiations which preceded the drawing up 
of the treaty of peace, Dewey was once more a lead¬ 
ing figure in the manipulation of events. He did not 
attend in person, although the government desired that 
he should, and withdrew its request only after he in¬ 
formed it how urgent was the necessity that he should 
remain at Manila “while matters are in their present 





io 6 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


critical condition”; but through several channels his 
ideas concerning the retention of the Philippines were 
made known. General Merritt reported to the peace 
delegates at Paris on October 6, “bringing along with 
his own suggestions,” the Admiral wrote, “any that I 
had to communicate.” Precisely what “any” included 
was, it is probable, made known to but a handful of 
men; but one or two statements that were made public 
may furnish an indication of its meaning. A message 
from the Admiral was forwarded to the commissioners 
on October 15, which stated that “the disposition of 
the Philippine Islands should be decided as soon as pos¬ 
sible and a strong government established. . . . The 
natives appear unable to govern.” At the very 
moment when Dewey was sending this message, two 
naval cadets, under his special order, were making a 
comprehensive circuit of Luzon. When they returned 
toward the end of November, they reported concerning 
Aguinaldo’s government that, for nearly six months, it 
had prevented anarchy and maintained order; that, in 
view of the generally critical condition of affairs, it was 
a very efficient government. Admiral Dewey had 
plenty of time in which to send this information to the 
Peace Commissioners, as a corrective of his earlier 
message, had he chosen to do so; but it appears that he 
did not so choose. 

The deliberations of the august body of Peace Com¬ 
missioners were not made public until January, 1901, 
when time had elapsed for the cooling of the violent 
passions which were stirred, both in America and in 
Europe, by its actions. It is even doubtful if, at that 
comparatively safe date, the publication of details was 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


107 


complete; for, to select but a single fact which con¬ 
duces to dubiety, the President had insinuated to White- 
law Reid, one of the Commissioners, that private let¬ 
ters written during the period of deliberations would 
always be welcome. Furthermore, to what extent the 
Commissioners themselves had a free hand likewise 
remains obscure, although the communications—the 
published communications—which the government 
sent them from time to time tend to make one believe 
that their freedom was considerably circumscribed. 
About a year later, on November 21, 1899, the Presi¬ 
dent revealed with extraordinary simplicity how it 
happened that he had finally decided the islands 
should be kept. On that day, at the close of a conver¬ 
sation with some Methodist Bishops and several lesser 
lights, he spoke thus: “Hold a moment longer! Not 
quite yet, gentlemen! Before you go I would like to 
say just a word about the Philippine business. I have 
been criticized a good deal about the Philippines, but 
don’t deserve it. . . . When next I realized that the 
Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did 
not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from 
all sides—Democrats as well as Republicans—but got 
little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; 
then Luzon; then other islands, perhaps, also. I walked 
the floor of the White House night after night until 
midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, 
that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty 
God for light and guidance more than one night. And 
one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know 
how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give 
them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dis. 




io8 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


honorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to 
France or Germany—our commercial rivals in the 
Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; 
(3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they 
were unfit for self-government—and they would soon 
have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s 
was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do 
but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and 
uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s 
grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow- 
men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to 
bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next 
morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War De¬ 
partment (our map-maker), and I told him to put the 
Philippines on the map of the United States, and there 
they are, and there they will stay while I am Presi¬ 
dent!” 

The good bishops were doubtless pleased that Mc¬ 
Kinley should make God the scapegoat (although 
they would have used a more flattering epithet) of his 
imperialistic policy toward those for whom Christ also 
died; but it seems probable that certain considerations, 
and persons less remote than the Deity, had something 
to do with the formation of this policy. A portion of 
his own private memoranda, indeed, reads thus: 
“While we are conducting war and until its conclusion 
we must keep all we get; when the war is over we 
must keep what we want.” To what extent the gov¬ 
ernment was swayed by financial interests is not, and 
never will be, quite determinable; but two straws may 
show in what direction the wind was blowing. At a 
meeting of the Merchants’ Association in New York, 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


109 


on June 14, 1898, one speaker was constrained to re¬ 
mind his hearers that the Philippines were “the con¬ 
necting link from the Western coast to the East”; and 
in August the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 
wrote: “The possession of the Philippines by a progres¬ 
sive commercial power . . . would change the course 
of ocean navigation. . . . The intelligent use of capi¬ 
tal .. . would revolutionize the [sugar] industry.” 
Was any mere abstract theory of government to be 
permitted to stand in the way of the opening of new 
markets? Countless clergymen and religious editors, 
too, fascinated by the idea that God regarded America 
as a new chosen race because of her incomparable moral 
virtues as a nation, righteously asseverated that the 
Lord’s anointed, William McKinley, has been miracu¬ 
lously selected by Providence to dispel the deep gloom 
of heathenism by the kindly light of Americanized 
Christianity. In fact, was not the President’s favorite 
hymn “Lead, Kindly Light?” Amid such national 
feelings, who could be expected to believe Senator Hoar 
and others of his stamp, when they declared that the 
acquisition of the islands would be a violation of the 
Declaration of Independence, of the Constitution, and 
of the whole spirit of American institutions? Cer¬ 
tainly, loyal Americans could not believe it, for whom 
Senator Lodge was the adequate mouthpiece: “the 
treaty . . . was an admirable instrument, a master¬ 
piece in every respect ... a very fit result of an en¬ 
tirely victorious war.” 

Thus it came about that, on October 26, 1898, Sec¬ 
retary Hay cabled the Commissioners: “The cession 
must be the whole archipelago or none. The latter is 





I 10 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


wholly inadmissible, and the former must therefore 
be required.” Two days later he sent word that the 
President’s belief was that “It is imperative upon us 
that as victors we should be governed only by motives 
that will exalt our nation.” And by the payment of 
twenty millions of dollars for property of far greater 
value, the nation’s exaltation into the position of a 
leading world-colonizing power was made secure. 

America had now entered into new and untried 
paths—into a new epoch, in fact—and she had been 
privileged to make that entry because of the adroitness, 
the stubborn and invincible persistency, the lofty sense 
of duty, which, mysteriously and inseparably blended 
into harmonious coalescence, composed the personality 
of Admiral George Dewey, to whom the President of 
the United States gratefully wrote, “Receive for your¬ 
self and the officers, sailors, and marines of your com¬ 
mand my thanks and congratulations and those of the 
nation for the gallant conduct all have again so con¬ 
spicuously displayed.” “It will always be a source of 
pride to us all,” the great naval commander humbly 
replied, “to have received such commendations.” 

V 

And yet—was it possible?—the Filipinos did not 
seem disposed to acquiesce in America’s just and 
costly acquisition of their territory and of themselves. 
It was unprecedented, preposterous, incredible—but 
it was nevertheless true. They appeared, so one be¬ 
wildered observer remarked, actually to have “gone 
wild on the words ‘protection’ and ‘independence,’ 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


hi 


whereas the words ‘sovereignty,’ ‘annexation’ and 
‘United States control’ seemed to excite them greatly.” 
What a pity it was that they were so unfamiliar 
with American history! But since they were quite 
unfamiliar with American history, it was manifestly 
America’s business to teach them, interested as she 
was in their progress and development. It became her, 
moreover, as a good and thorough school mistress, to 
emphasize the necessity of education by administering 
a few spankings to those who were inclined to be unruly 
and generally unappreciative of the tutoring process; 
and since most of the Filipinos came within this sad 
category, it was necessary for the two chief instructors, 
Admiral Dewey and General Otis (successor to Gen¬ 
eral Merritt), to resort to chastisements which were 
very numerous, very thorough, and at times even a 
little bloody. 

The career of Elwell S. Otis, similar to that of 
Dewey, had by good fortune been such that he was ex¬ 
cellently equipped to be a leader in sanguinary affairs. 
A graduate of Harvard’s school of law, instead of 
practicing his chosen profession he served his country 
so well in the Civil War that, in 1866, he was made a 
Lieutenant Colonel in the regular army. He partici¬ 
pated in various campaigns against the Indians, and was 
partially responsible for making the notorious Sioux 
chieftain, Sitting Bull, lie quiet forever. Step by step he 
rose in the Army, until he became a Major General of 
the volunteers in 1898, and in the autumn of that year 
replaced General Merritt as chief of the army in the 
Philippines. At this time he was sixty years of age—a 
painstaking, fussy old chap, of extremely solemn deport- 




112 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


ment, yet simple and unaffected withal, rather more 
honest and somewhat less efficient than the usual run 
of army officers. “One would about as soon think of 
cracking a joke in his presence,” remarked an under 
officer, Fred Funston, “as of trying to pull his beard”; 
and since he kept that ornamental feature restricted to 
side whiskers, which were cropped so closely that they 
encircled his face, from ear to ear, in a symmetrical line 
with his mustache, to have pulled it effectively would 
have been very difficult. 

Long before this genial colleague had arrived, it is 
evident that Dewey had anticipated an arduous 
struggle in attempting to inculcate among the Filipinos 
lessons in patriotism and general good deportment; he, 
therefore, believed that the instruction should com¬ 
mence promptly before any possibility of a mutiny 
among his pupils should arise. No sooner had Manila 
fallen than, on the same day, he sent this request 
through the army commander to Washington: “Is gov¬ 
ernment willing to use all means to make the natives 
submit to the authority of the United States?” Five 
days later he was informed that the President had 
directed that the natives should obey this dictum: “The 
insurgents and all others must recognize the military 
occupation and authority of the United States. . . . Use 
whatever means in your judgment are necessary to 
this end.” On September 6, McKinley gave Otis per¬ 
mission to maintain “a position of rightful supremacy 
as to the insurgents.” Properly emboldened by this, 
Otis sent word to Aguinaldo two days afterward that 
he would be obliged to withdraw his troops from Ma¬ 
nila, in these words: “I hereby serve qotice on you 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


that unless your troops are withdrawn beyond the line 
of the city’s defenses before Thursday, the fifteenth in¬ 
stant, I shall be compelled to resort to forcible action.” 
The Filipino chieftain wisely kept the ultimatum secret 
from his men, and withdrew them in accordance with 
this courteous request. 

Perhaps the American forces were a little disap¬ 
pointed that Aguinaldo so passively obeyed; for, fol¬ 
lowing Manila’s capture, they appear to have become 
restless at having nothing in particular to do. A joint 
letter, written on August 30 by four press corre¬ 
spondents, made this ominous statement: “There can 
be no doubt that our soldiers are spoiling for a fight. 
They hate and despise the natives.” But, by a happy 
concatenation of affairs, they soon found adequate 
relief for their pent-up emotions, as an account by an 
English observer makes clear: “The American volun¬ 
teer regiments marched into Manila in good order like 
regular troops, but as soon as the novelty of their 
strange environment had worn off they gave themselves 
up to all sorts of excesses, debauchery, and vice. Drink¬ 
ing bars were opened all over the city and suburbs. 
Drunken brawls, indiscriminate revolver firing, inde¬ 
cent assaults on women, kicks and cuffs to any Filipino, 
burglary in broad daylight and thefts from shops and 
street vendors were of hourly occurrence. Towards 
evening intoxicated groups took possession of the high¬ 
ways, entered any Filipino’s house, maltreated the in¬ 
mates, stole what they liked and attemped to ravage 
the women. . . . After the day’s drinking was over, 
heaps of besotted humanity were seen lying helpless 
in doorways or in the gutters—a sad spectacle never be- 




STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


114 

fore witnessed by any Filipino.” That enterprising 
American business men had, indeed, already seized the 
opportunity of catering to the deeper desires of their 
nation’s defenders is evident from an advertisement 
which appeared in a Manila paper on November 30: 
“there are no business undertakings offering as posi¬ 
tive gain as restaurants, bars and taverns, cafes and 
saloons of recreation. For here are the Americans, the 
most practical men in business matters, and has any of 
them started here any other business than that?” But 
in 1900 Bishop Potter testified that, during his six 
weeks’ sojourn in the Philippines, he had not seen a 
single drunken man; and when one considers how true 
it is that intoxicated males invariably seek and foster 
the jovial companionship of high church dignitaries, 
the cogency of the Bishop’s testimony becomes over¬ 
whelming. Eventually the government, anxious as 
usual about the morals of its soldiers, requested infor¬ 
mation concerning the truth of these varying reports, 
and was highly gratified when it received the oracular 
reply, “drunkenness this army, no more noticeable here 
than in garrisons United States.” Meanwhile from 
Vladivostok, Yokohama, Singapore and Calcutta 
abandoned women, keenly appreciative of the business 
opportunities attending a fair-sized military force, 
kept streaming into the Philippines—as many as three 
hundred were reported to have come on a single ship. 

While army traditions were being thus staunchly 
preserved and perpetuated, the leaders were not idle 
either. In October Dewey had seized five vessels, which 
Aguinaldo was using for inter-island communication, in 
a laudable endeavor to prevent the gathering of mili- 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


US 

mrnmamrnm 

tary material. On the 4th of December, six days 
before the peace treaty was signed, the President had 
sent this characteristic message to Otis: “The Presi¬ 
dent desires that Admiral Dewey and General Otis shall 
have an early conference and advise him what force 
and equipment will be necessary in the Philippines. . . . 
When these islands shall be ceded to us, it is his desire 
that peace and tranquillity shall be restored and as kind 
and beneficent government as possible given to the 
people.” Again, on December 21, he sent a message in 
which moralizing precepts were happily blended with 
decisive instructions: “The destruction of the Spanish 
fleet in the harbor of Manila by the United States 
naval squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Dewey, 
followed by the reduction of the city and the surrender 
of the Spanish forces, practically effected the conquest 
of the Philippine Islands . . . the military govern¬ 
ment heretofore maintained by the United States in the 
city, harbor and bay of Manila is to be extended with 
all possible dispatch to the whole of the ceded territory 
. . . we come, not as invaders or as conquerors, but as 
friends. . . . The taxes and duties heretofore payable 
by the inhabitants to the late government become pay¬ 
able to the authorities of the United States . . . the 
mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimi¬ 
lation. ... In the fulfillment of this high mission . . . 
there must be sedulously maintained the strong arm of 
authority, to repress disturbance and to overcome all 
obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings of good and 
stable government upon the people of the Philippine 
Islands under the free flag of the United States.” In 
a speech at Pittsburgh in August, 1899, McKinley 




STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


116 


made an interesting commentary on these official 
orders; he said: “Until the treaty was ratified, we had 
no authority beyond Manila, city, bay and harbor. 
We then had no other title to defend, no authority 
beyond that to maintain.” The treaty, as a matter of 
historical record, was not ratified until February 6, 
1899—but what of that? Was it not certain to be 
ratified anyhow and might not McKinley wisely and 
shrewdly anticipate its eventual ratification by issuing 
orders, the execution of which was, if not legally and 
morally, at least practically and diplomatically expe¬ 
dient? 

Apparently Admiral Dewey thought so; for early in 
December he suavely advised the President to define 
as unambiguously as possible what was the exact status 
of the insurgents and the American forces in occupa¬ 
tion. McKinley replied on January 3, 1899, with a 
message in which such expressions as “sovereignty” 
and “right of cession” appeared—expressions which 
unescapably implied that immediate occupation of the 
islands was at least expected. General Otis wisely 
directed that these sentiments should be eliminated 
from the order before it was publicly proclaimed; but 
one of his subordinates unluckily issued it just as it 
was written—did he wish to stir up trouble, or was he 
careless, or can it be possible that he was merely hon¬ 
est? Hence the unexpurgated copies soon reached 
Aguinaldo, who actually became rather irritated and 
made ready for the conflict that seemed inevitable 
and near. 

It was, in fact, very near. On the night of February 
4, a Filipino close to or within the American lines re- 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


fused to halt when challenged, and at once the challen¬ 
ger fired at him. Exchanges of shots succeeded during 
the night, and next morning the Americans advanced 
against the insurgents and drove them from their lines, 
while Admiral Dewey supported the Army by an inter¬ 
mittent fire from his ships north and south of the city. 
The war, which was to last more than three years 
in both organized battles and guerrilla conflicts, had 
finally commenced. 

Several circumstances coincident with its beginning 
are fraught with peculiar interest. The government, 
of course, claimed that the insurgents were the ag¬ 
gressors, that its troops were forced to fight in self- 
defense, and that, the conflict having started, Ameri¬ 
can honor would be smirched unless American superi¬ 
ority and sovereignty over the Filipinos were attained. 
General Otis, it seems, implicitly believed all this; for, 
on the night of February 4, he dispatched the news to 
Washington that Aguinaldo “applies for cessation of 
hostilities and conference. Have declined to answer.” 
Several days later he wrote, “Positive, insurgent attack 
not ordered by insurgent government.” On the evening 
of February 5, the first official dispatches telling of 
the outbreak were sent to Washington; but, because of 
the difference in time between the two places, they 
were received early enough to be printed on February 
5 in the Sunday newspapers. Meanwhile, the treaty 
of peace, sent to the Senate by the President on January 
4, had been in great danger of defeat; nearly all of the 
Republicans eagerly desired its passage, while the Dem¬ 
ocrats were mostly opposed. The battle between these 
political enemies had been long and spirited, and the 





118 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


result of the vote, which it had been previously—and 
significantly—decided to take on February 6, was in 
great doubt. Twenty-four hours before the time for 
taking the vote there came the news of the outbreak at 
Manila, and several Senators who had been wavering 
now became convinced that it was their patriotic duty 
to vote in affirmation, since their country was again at 
war. To vote negatively under such circumstances, 
they felt, would be too much like refusing to vote sup¬ 
plies when their nation was fighting; as a result, a two- 
thirds majority for the treaty was secured, but with 
only two votes in excess of the requisite number. So 
curious did these nearly synchronous events appear 
that an accusation was later made that the government, 
in a desperate attempt to force the passage of the 
treaty, had deliberately conspired with the military 
forces at Manila, in order to make it appear that a 
war, in reality anticipated and provoked by the Amer¬ 
ican troops, had been started by the Filipinos. But 
what save intemperate partisan malice could have 
hatched up such an accusation? Manifestly, nothing 
else. Did not the President himself say, on February 
16, 1899, U I have no light or knowledge not common 
to my countrymen”? Furthermore, with his habitual 
candor, he also stated what the precise facts were in a 
speech at Pittsburgh on August 28 in the same year. 
“They assailed our sovereignty, and there will be no 
useless parley—no pause until the insurrection is sup¬ 
pressed. . . . The misguided followers in rebellion 
have only our charity and pity. . . . Our prayers will 
go with them [the American forces], and more men 
and munitions if required, for . . . the establishment 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


**9 

of ... a government which will do justice to all and 
at once encourage the best efforts and aspirations of 
these distant people and the highest development of 
their rich and fertile lands.” After that speech, no 
one could rightly claim that American control of the 
Philippines, with their rich and fertile lands, was not 
being attained by a process of assimilation that was 
uncommonly benevolent. 

That there would be no useless parley General Otis 
had already demonstrated; and that there would be no 
pause he and Admiral Dewey continued to demonstrate 
during the next few months. In the battles that fol¬ 
lowed, it was soon evident that the Filipinos were ob¬ 
sessed with the naive and disconcerting belief that war 
is neither a humane nor chivalrous affair, and that the 
most expeditious way to win a war is to kill as many 
of the enemy as possible, by whatever means. But 
American chivalry was unfailing. A Tennessee com¬ 
pany, ordered to return to headquarters with thirty 
prisoners, came in with about one hundred fowl and no 
prisoners. “I don’t know,” commented one soldier, 
“how many men, women and children the Tennessee 
boys did kill. They wouldn’t take any prisoners.” A 
Kansas company, having taken four Filipinos, asked 
the captain what should be done with them; he replied, 
“You know the orders,” and the four natives fell dead. 
When reports of this sort were published at home, the 
administration felt so much concern that Secretary 
Long, at the end of April, 1899, was moved to declare 
before a Boston audience that accusations, pointed at 
American troops, of inhuman methods of warfare 
were wholly false; but, although he clinched his case 





120 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


by citing statements of Seth Low and Lyman Abbott 
to the effect that they believed all such tales to be 
untrue, doubts still remained in the minds of a few 
miserable sceptics. Before the war had ended, a 
Brigadier General, on his own confession, was con¬ 
victed of ordering a Major under him “to kill and 
burn; that the more he killed and burned the better 

pleased General-would be; that it was no time to 

take prisoners; and that when Major-asked Gen¬ 
eral-to define the age limit for killing, he replied, 

‘Everything over io\” 

Such distressing bits of information the government 
had sought to suppress, in the early months of the war, 
by a strict censorship. Admiral Dewey himself was 
accustomed to censor all the news dispatched by press 
representatives in his fleet; but he was very fair. So 
long as nothing was sent which might, in his own 
language, “unduly excite and disturb the people at 
home,” the reporters were given absolute liberty to 
write what they pleased—with the proviso that no in¬ 
formation of any kind could be given unless it also 
pleased Admiral Dewey. General Otis and his staff 
were similarly liberal. “My instructions are,” said the 
chief censor, “to let nothing go that can hurt the Ad¬ 
ministration. Otis himself cabled on January 17, 
1899, “baseless rumors . . . tending to excite outside 
world, stricken from proposed press cablegrams.” 
Perhaps the unfortunate wording of some of his own 
messages tended to excite civilians as much as uncen¬ 
sored press dispatches would have done; they could not 
be quite sure whether he was perfectly serious, or just 
stupid, or very inopportunely facetious when he sent 







ADMIRAL DEWEY 


I 2 I 


this message: “Nebraska regiment suffered severely in 
casualties. Health fairly good. . . .” But in spite of 
Otis, some of these baseless rumors eventually reached 
America in soldiers’ letters. Such a state of affairs could 
not be endured; and that it was not is made clear by a 
passage from one of those letters: “Some of the boys 
are getting into all kinds of trouble over their letters 
. . . Why in the world do you people publish our let¬ 
ters?” Stirred by reports of this nature, such a slavish 
supporter of the McKinley regime as the Detroit 
Tribune stated that, “it is revealed that the command¬ 
ing officers in the islands exercise a kind of terrorism 
by which it is sought to prevent soldiers from writing 
the truth.” The climax came on July 18, 1899, when 
the chief correspondent at Manila sent home a “round 
robin” letter, which was remarkably frank and en¬ 
lightening: “The censorship has compelled us to par¬ 
ticipate in this misrepresentation [of military affairs] 
by excising or altering uncontroverted statements of 
facts on the plea, as General Otis stated, that ‘they 
would alarm the people at home’ or ‘have the people 
of the United States by the ears.’ Specifications: Pro¬ 
hibition of hospital reports; suppression of full reports 
of field operations in the event of failure; numbers of 
heat prostrations in the field; systematic minimization 
of naval operations, and suppression of complete re¬ 
ports of the situation.” On the next day the “round 
robin” was discussed at a cabinet meeting, and it was 
decided officially to ignore the incident; but a cablegram 
was at once sent to Otis, demanding a statement from 
him. He immediately replied, “Not conscious of send¬ 
ing misrepresentations; in fact, think my dispatches at 




122 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


times too conservative.” At length, on September 9, a 
confidential message was sent to Otis, commanding 
“that the censorship be entirely removed, only continu¬ 
ing the requirement that all matter be submitted in 
advance, that you may deal, as you deem best, with any 
liable to affect military operations or offending against 
military discipline.” Certainly, official clarity and 
moderation of this nature were very unusual, and Otis 
was gratified to know precisely what his duties were. 

Still, the government seems to have felt that some 
public gesture was necessary to assure its citizens that 
all was well; for on July 19, but one day after the 
“round robin” had caused such a furore, Senator 
Platt gave out an elaborate and detailed defense of the 
President’s Philippine policy, and Secretary Alger re¬ 
signed from his office upon request. His resignation 
was not asked, to be sure, because of incompetency, or 
of chicanery in handling the censorship, for his integrity 
and ability were known to all; it was merely stated 
that he had been seeking the aid of forces hostile to 
McKinley in the hope of winning a future Senatorial 
election. He was, in fact, elected to that office from 
Michigan; and it is recorded that on one occasion he 
interrupted a speaking colleague to ask if he did not 
know that the passage of the bill under discussion 
would be highly detrimental to mining interests in 
Arizona, held by several members of Congress, among 
them being the Senator from Michigan. The letters 
in which Alger’s resignation was demanded and 
accepted were made public; and the mutually formal 
compliments in them prompted a London journal to 
remark that they were excellent specimens of Ameri- 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


123 


can humor. But the selection of Alger’s successor 
was entirely serious. McKinley told Elihu Root over 
the telephone that he was the man for the post, but 
Root objected on the ground that he knew nothing 
about war and the army. The President shrewdly 
replied: “I don’t want a man who knows about 
war and the army. I want a lawyer. . . .” Such an 
argument was overwhelming, and Root thereupon 
reigned in Alger’s stead. His portrait was appropri¬ 
ately hung in the War Department gallery, in company 
with the greatest of America’s Secretaries of War; for 
it had been felt that not all of them were worthy of a 
place in that gallery. 

On January 24, 1907, there appeared a newspaper 
interview, granted in March, 1900, but never made 
public until the exact day of Alger’s death, in which 
he showed his pique at the treatment he had received 
from McKinley. In a private conversation with the 
Chief Executive, Alger had asked whether his political 
dealings had embarrassed the President. “Yes,” Mc¬ 
Kinley assented, “you have embarrassed me and I am 
annoyed.” The President, however, was given some 
Parthian praise. “He has many loving qualities,” 
Alger concluded, “but he lacks backbone.” 

In the meantime, Admiral Dewey, the unconscious 
juggler who tossed the reputations of so many men into 
light or obscurity, had left the memorable scene of his 
epochal achievements and returned home. “I was 
weary and in poor health,” he protested, in giving the 
reasons for his return, “while I could not help being 
deeply affected by the necessity of the loss of life and 
the misery which the pacification of the islands im- 




124 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


posed”—reasons which were doubtless compelling and 
adequate enough; but there were others of even greater 
weight, one of which is to be found in the “round 
robin”; the “systematic minimization of naval opera¬ 
tions” by Otis. In truth, between him and Dewey per¬ 
sonal friction had steadily increased ever since the 
incipient stages of the Filipino insurrection. The mem¬ 
bers of the Philippine Commission, which had been 
appointed by McKinley at Dewey’s suggestion, and of 
which he and Otis were ex-officio members, were not 
able to work together in amity; but, while in private 
they might, and did, growl at each other with perfect 
freedom, it would not do to let their bickerings become 
a matter of public knowledge. This commendably ex¬ 
pedient policy Otis himself made clear in a dispatch on 
June 4, 1899, in which he advised the government thus: 
“Ostensibly it [the Commission] will be supported by . 
War Department authorities here, and to outside 
world gentle peace shall prevail.” But between him 
and the Admiral there was not even gentle peace; in 
fact, there was no peace at all. Otis had desired to 
permit commerce between the various islands; but 
Dewey had refused to allow the blockade of all navi¬ 
gation, established by his orders, to be lifted; for to 
have done so would, he believed, have enabled the in¬ 
surgents to seize more munitions, to prolong the war, 
and thus to increase the misery which the pacification 
of the islands imposed. In April Otis had purchased 
thirteen gunboats from the Spaniards, which he in¬ 
tended to use, independently of Dewey’s fleet, as an 
inter-island patrolling force. At length, in an inter¬ 
view teeming with personal recriminations, the Ad- 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


l2 l 

miral forced Otis to give up the gunboats, “as a menace 
to public safety,” and on May 15 he commanded his 
fleet to stop all inter-island trade of every kind. Otis 
dared not resist these orders, for he had already acted 
contrary to instructions given by Dewey. But the 
Admiral, whose weariness and ill-health were pre¬ 
sumably accentuated by these incidents, now deter¬ 
mined to take the benefit of the President’s permission 
to sail for home when and by whatever route he 
pleased. Accordingly, on the 20th of May the Olympia 
weighed anchor, steamed slowly out of the harbor made 
illustrious by her commander, and turned her prow 
toward home. 


VI 

With a four-starred Admiral’s flag, instead of a 
Commodore’s broad pennant, fluttering proudly and 
announcing the presence of the most notorious of all 
living naval officials, the Olympia made a triumphant 
entry of port after port on her homeward journey 
through the Mediterranean, greeted each time with the 
roar of nineteen guns in salute. At Hong Kong the 
Admiral, for the first time in more than a year, had 
enjoyed the luxury of sleeping on shore, “in a hotel 
free from ship’s routine.” To the American Consul 
General at that place he remarked: “I hope to see 
America’s possessions the key to Oriental commerce 
and civilization. . . . We must never sell them. . . . 
We will never part with the Philippines, I am sure.” 
He expressed a similar sentiment on July 14 in con¬ 
versing with a reporter on the Olympia: “I am glad to 
hear that they are going to send more troops to the 






126 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Philippines. They will be needed there.” In a speech 
at Trieste, at a dinner given in his honor, he casually 
stated that he hoped to see McKinley reelected Presi¬ 
dent. Casually? Perhaps. At Manila stacks of let¬ 
ters and telegrams had come to him from prominent 
Democrats and Republicans, questioning whether he 
himself would not be a candidate for that office; but 
he had stoutly reiterated that under no circumstances 
would he either strive for or accept a nomination by 
either party. And yet, fight against it as he might, he 
could not banish the tempting vision—there it was, 
ever enthralling, ever seductive. That a change had 
come over him is attested by words of his which were 
recorded in the London Daily News on August 21: 
“I have never been in favor of violence toward the 
Filipinos. ... I should like to see autonomy first 
conceded, and then annexation might be talked about.” 
Was the reversal of attitude indicated in these remarks 
the result of an honest change of heart—a newly ac¬ 
quired conviction that force was wrong? Or had it 
originated in the ignis fatnus which his vaulting imag¬ 
ination dangled before him? Did he see himself for 
a brief time as champion of the anti-imperialist forces 
at home—as a political opponent of McKinley—as 
President at last? It seems probable; for in the depths 
of his soul fierce, antagonistic powers were at war: con¬ 
science—a plea for truth, duty and fairness—fought 
an ever losing battle against that perpetual, quenchless 
longing for fame added unto fame, honor unto honor, 
office unto office. At length the struggle was over; a 
compromise with expediency, that almost incredibly 
potent force in the lives of men, was effected; and ex- 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


127 


pediency whispered that, after all, the anti-imperialist 
faction was steadily weakening in the face of the sweep¬ 
ing successes of the opposition, and that an alliance 
with a weakening clique would not augur success. And 
expediency emerged full victor in Dewey’s first confer¬ 
ence with McKinley, when the President asked him cer¬ 
tain questions and jotted down the answers on a con¬ 
venient pad of paper. The catechism that follows was 
of significance; for it corroborated McKinley’s already 
puissant and God-inspired determination to retain the 
Philippines, and Dewey was the avatar who put to 
flight any lingering doubts which the President may 
have had. 

Q. What is our duty? 

A. Keep the islands permanently. Valuable in 
every way. 

Q. How many troops needed? 

A. Fifty thousand. 

Q. Should we give up the islands? 

A. Never—never. 

Q. The stories of church desecration and inhu¬ 
manity. 

A. [On this point the ritual is curiously silent.] 

This ceremony occurred about six weeks before the 
occasion on which the President had so freely opened 
his heart to the Methodist Bishops, and had stated 
the enthusiastic source of his conviction that the Philip¬ 
pines ought to be retained. 

But while the Admiral was still on ship, he could 
always get relief from his tantalizing thoughts, from 
his bitter inward struggle, by recounting to the admir¬ 
ing folk on his vessel his experiences at Manila. One 




128 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


day, as he indulged in reminiscences of his great tri¬ 
umph, he became so much aroused that the story “of 
those anxious hours brought him to his feet, and he 
unconsciously grasped the hand of a young American 
lady sitting next to him.” 

Accelerated by such pleasant diversions, the light 
hours sped by almost too rapidly; but at length the 
Olympia proudly crested the sluggish waters of New 
York harbor, and Admiral Dewey, despite the warn¬ 
ings he had received, found himself almost totally un¬ 
prepared for the unparalleled honors which the city 
and the nation showered upon him. Following the 
delirious reception at New York, there came another 
almost as unrestrained at Washington; and, as the 
crowning feature of that occasion, the President placed 
in Dewey’s hand the sword of honor tendered him by 
his country. The sword had a hilt of gold—of twenty- 
two carat gold—and was covered so completely with 
symbolic engravings that it resembled a miniature 
Egyptian obelisk. The path of glory led the Admiral 
to one public festival after another; the richest and 
most influential persons in the nation gladly swung 
wide the portals of their mansions and prodigally lav¬ 
ished upon him the bedizenments of their limitless 
wealth, together with that esoteric and polished culture 
which is so uniformly a concomitant of the possession 
of riches. Nor were there any so poor as to fail to 
do him reverence; the rank and file gave their mites— 
no one was allowed to give more than ten cents—to 
make up a fund which eventually included over 70,000 
separate contributions, and which was transmuted into 
a huge and unwieldy silver loving-cup. But the distinc- 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


129 


tions with which Dewey was favored were not merely 
national and social: he was elected an honorary mem¬ 
ber of the Sunday School at the United Presbyterian 
Tabernacle of Ravenswood, Illinois; aspiring villages 
sought to be renamed for him; and new-born male 
babes, unable and indeed too innocent of the ways of 
the world to protest against the absurdity of their 
elders, were christened with his full name. 

Contingent with these national pleasantries, there 
came an event which at first made the country titillate 
with vicarious joy; but soon rumors went abroad that 
caused wonder, then doubt, then something akin to 
consternation. The newspapers on October 31 con¬ 
spicuously displayed the announcement of the Admi¬ 
ral’s engagement to Mrs. Mildred McLean Hazen; 
and one report stated that “as he confided the happy 
news to his friends, the Admiral danced about the 
floor and hugged his visitors with all the exuberant 
enthusiasm of a boy in his teens,” meanwhile gasping 
out, as he puffed for breath, “The most charming 
woman in the world has just given me her promise to 
become Mrs. Dewey.” Such undignified actions were 
very natural, for the lady was relatively handsome. 
“Her special characteristics,” said a warm admirer, 
after Mrs. Hazen’s marriage to Dewey, “are an in¬ 
nate modesty, coupled with an intense ambition to shine 
at the topmost heights of social success, a decided fond¬ 
ness for dress and jewels, and devotion to her hus¬ 
band.” The daughter of one of America’s wealthiest 
women, in her youth she had married a high army offi¬ 
cial who died shortly afterward, had spent some years 
in Austria-Hungary, and, since Catholicism was in 





130 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


vogue there, had left the Presbyterian faith in which 
she had been nurtured and had become a Roman Cath¬ 
olic. “Nothing was more natural to a woman of a 
religious turn of mind,” said the same admirer, “than 
to follow the fashionable crowd to the fashionable 
church.” “She likes books,” the admirer continued, 
“yet will express no preference for any particular 
author, reading with equal satisfaction from Scott to 
Kipling, and her library is well filled with all the good 
things between covers.” At Vienna it was reported 
that her diamonds were second in value only to those 
belonging to the Empress; and at a Presidential recep¬ 
tion during the winter of 1899, she was the most daz- 
zlingly decorated of all the ladies present, “her jewels 
covering her corsage and her hair in bewildering splen¬ 
dor, though in exquisite taste, for it was an occasion 
when women say too many cannot be worn.” Her 
friendship with Admiral Dewey had begun before he 
went to the Philippines, and when he was made an Ad¬ 
miral she and her mother had sent him this message: 
“You are an Admiral. God bless you.” The already 
happy man, made trebly happy by these three parallel 
joys, at once cabled back: “Thanks and thanks, and yet 
again thanks.” They were married on November 9 
by a Catholic priest in Washington, and went at once 
to New York in the hope of spending a quiet honey¬ 
moon; but wherever they ventured, Dewey’s figure, 
made familiar by innumerable newspaper photographs, 
was promptly recognized, and good-naturedly curious 
but annoying crowds followed them through the 
streets, bent upon seeing the greatest military figure 
alive and upon observing the style of the various 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


131 

dresses worn by his wife. On one occasion, the crowd 
near Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street became so numer¬ 
ous and so familiar that the embarrassed couple were 
forced to take refuge in a convenient department store, 
whence they telephoned for a rescuing cab. 

But soon there came an episode which considerably 
dimmed the Admiral’s popularity and marred his mari¬ 
tal bliss. The nation had given him a house in Wash¬ 
ington, purchased by popular subscription for $50,000, 
in which the happy pair dwelt after returning from 
their honeymoon. Coincidently, the Admiral deeded 
this house to his wife. Was this act prompted merely 
by an exuberance of that generous confidence which is 
so common among newly-wedded husbands? What¬ 
ever the real cause of Dewey’s action was, the action 
itself soon became known; it soon became known, also, 
that the nation’s gift was not so desirable a residence 
for the two as Mrs. Dewey’s own house, a far more 
elegant edifice, would have been. People instinctively 
felt that it was not nice for a man, even though a great 
man, to cavil at living in a mansion bought and paid 
for by them. Was he not a sort of national asset, a 
species of public property, the greatest living hero in 
captivity—and ought he not therefore to be regularly 
upon public exhibition? Then it was recalled, by an 
enormous number of persons, that Dewey, a Protes¬ 
tant, had married a Catholic—an impossible, oil-and- 
water state of affairs. Vague rumors, whispered hints 
and suspicions succeeded each other through the fol¬ 
lowing months; and thousands who would formerly 
have made ready to fight if the faintest slur had been 
aimed at their idol, now proceeded to pelt him with 




132 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


mud. But all this was only to be expected, for the 
war against the Filipinos was becoming a little stale 
and tiresome, the Boer War was not a matter of 
national concern, the next Presidential election was 
nearly a year away, there was no nationally important 
and entertaining murder or divorce case before the 
public, no one was trying to make the North Pole safe 
for democracy just then, and some emotional outlet 
was necessary to relieve what might otherwise have 
been a comparatively tedious and monotonous time. 

Probability, furthermore, favors the presumption 
that the circulation of these tales about Dewey was to 
some degree—conceivably to a great degree—inspired 
and directed by individuals and organizations that were 
fearful of Dewey as a formidable candidate for the 
Presidency. Eventually, in fact, the numerous sug¬ 
gestions, requests, almost commands, from those 
whose confidence in him was unshaken, that he should 
become a candidate persuaded him to yield; how much 
Mrs. Dewey may have influenced him in this decision— 
Mrs. Dewey, whose chief trait was ambition of one 
sort or another, who had picked the Admiral from a 
host of admirers as the one most likely to gratify her 
various whims—must remain unknown. On April 4, 
1900, in a public interview he made this declaration: 
“If the American people want me for this high office, 
I shall be only too willing to serve them. It is the 
highest honor in the gift of the nation; what citizen 
would refuse it? Since studying this subject I am con¬ 
vinced that the office of President is not such a very 
difficult one to fill, his duties being mainly to execute 
the laws of Congress.” At the conclusion of the inter- 





ADMIRAL DEWEY 


133 


view, he said, “I think I have said enough at this time 
and possibly too much.” His conception of the pleas¬ 
ant tasks that devolve upon a President was presuma¬ 
bly due to the excellent example of McKinley; at all 
events, he had assuredly said enough to indicate his 
fitness for the office. He had refused to listen to sug¬ 
gestions of his candidacy upon his return from Manila, 
he said, because of his poor health; but now, after six 
months of married life, he had regained all the vigor 
and robustness of youth, and was ready and eager to 
expend his renewed energy in numerous directions. 
When questioned as to which party he preferred to 
lead, he would not make a definite statement—appar¬ 
ently the naval tactician was applying some elements 
of his experience to the political game. Mr. Dooley, 
one of the acutest philosophers of the time, thus suc¬ 
cinctly stated Dewey’s position: “Divvle th’ bit I care. 
Just say I’m a Dimmycrat with sthrong Raypublican 
leanings. Put it this way: I’m a Dimmycrat be a point 
Raypublican, Dimmycrat. Anny sailor-man’ll undher- 
stand that.” 

The Republicans, it seems, understood it even better 
than sailors, for they immediately increased their 
efforts to eliminate Dewey as a candidate. Certainly, 
they did not want him—McKinley had proved more 
than satisfactory for their purposes—but neither did 
they want the Democrats to nominate him; for they 
were alarmed lest, if Dewey became the definite cham¬ 
pion of anti-imperialism, he might be a stronger force 
than the Peerless Leader himself. Even before Dewey 
had publicly announced his availability and receptive 
state of mind, the leading agents of the G. O. P. had 





134 


i 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


endeavored to promulgate the impression that he was 
going on a long trip abroad—“I am getting tired of 
denying this story that I am going to Europe,” Dewey 
said on the first day of April. The Republicans had, 
in fact, tried to forestall the unthinkable eventuality 
of Dewey’s nomination by giving him a job—a very 
good and absolutely unique job; for his promotion to 
the rank of Admiral had carried with it the stipulation 
that it was to be his as long as he lived; and, in order 
that the title might not be wholly ornamental, he was 
made President of the General Board of the Navy, in 
March. This was undoubtedly an honor, not merely 
decorative but remunerative also; but it is quite proba¬ 
ble that political machinations as well as a laudable 
desire to reward Dewey properly may have inspired 
the government’s generosity. But, while the tempting 
bait was quickly nibbled from the hook, the fish was 
too wily to be caught; the Admiral accepted the honor 
—and still kept his eye on the White House. At 
length, the Republican Times-Herald of Chicago de¬ 
clared that he had determined to trim his sails and steer 
for the nomination because he was angry on account 
of McKinley’s refusal to give him $10,000 for services 
as a member of the Philippine Commission. When 
told that the law would not permit such a payment, 
so this paper stated, “The Admiral lost his temper. 
He went home livid with rage. He swore at the Presi¬ 
dent in the most bitter way.” Whether this story is 
true—certainly, there is nothing inherently improbable 
about it—or whether it is a characteristic specimen of 
political mendacity, it epitomizes the methods which 
were utilized to strangle any chance Dewey may have 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


i 35 


had to win a nomination from either party; for, since 
he had refused to rest satisfied with a concrete expres¬ 
sion recognizing his singular eminence, it was necessary 
to show him that he must be, if not altogether satisfied, 
at least acquiescent. In the end, such methods, to¬ 
gether with the fact that the heroic figure had dwin¬ 
dled and shrunken in size because of the unpleasant 
occurrences of the preceding six months, proved to be 
wholly efficacious; the Admiral’s name was not even 
mentioned by either of the two parties at their conven¬ 
tions in 1900. 

VII 

Thus deprived of winning the highest recognition 
of merit and popularity his country had in its power 
to bestow, Admiral Dewey banished such vexatious 
matters as far from his mind as he could, and settled 
down to enjoy a green old age. His home life from 
this time seems to have been pleasant enough; for Mrs. 
Dewey, too, apparently acquiesced and decided that 
life had favored her, now a middle-aged lady, with 
as many blessings as even a wealthy Presbyterian- 
Catholic could rightfully expect to receive; he had easy 
and congenial work to do; in brief, he was, and con¬ 
tinued to be, happy. Whereas in middle life he had 
been unwell for protracted periods, he now enjoyed 
good health; and he remained in good health princi¬ 
pally because his habits were as regular as the tick of 
a clock. At nine in the evening he retired and slept 
until four; then he dozed or dreamily meditated for 
two hours more. But promptly on the stroke of six, 
his Chinese servant, Ah Maw, whom he had brought 





136 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


from the Philippines, appeared with a cup of tea, which 
the Admiral drank with relish. After that, he dressed 
and read for two hours, or perhaps took a turn in the 
air before breakfast. Then off he went to his work 
at the naval board, half a mile from his city home. 
In good weather he would walk to and from this place, 
and continued this practice up to the last year of his 
life; but in bad weather he drove in a limousine. Punc¬ 
tually at nine o’clock, or a minute or two earlier, he 
reached his office; and he was so invariably on time 
that the elevator boys were always careful to have a 
car ready for their never-failing passenger. There he 
worked for two or three hours, after which he returned 
home to spend the day as he chose; and the next day, 
and the next, he went through the same performance. 

But it was during the summer months, at his wife’s 
country home, that the Admiral spent his happiest 
times. Situated on the summit of a hill, with Wash¬ 
ington, the lovely Potomac, and the purplish mountains 
of Virginia and Maryland in view, Beauvoir, a square, 
old-fashioned colonial house, was a charming spot, 
and far more home-like than the rather ugly three-story 
brick structure on Rhode Island Avenue which the 
nation had given him. At his country home, he would 
sit on the veranda in his armed wicker chair—the same 
chair in which he had so often sunned himself on the 
Olympia’s deck—gazing contentedly across the rolling 
landscape and lost in peaceful revery as phantasmagori- 
cal memories of his life’s complicated history stirred 
vaguely in his mind, or playing with the small house¬ 
hold of dogs which Mrs. Dewey had acquired. Occa¬ 
sionally, the Admiral’s fancies would be interrupted by 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


137 


his wife’s special pet, a parrot, which incontinently 
squawked, “Hello, George!” saucily contemptuous of 
its master’s rank and meditations. Or he would rise 
and walk through the rooms of Beauvoir, noting with 
joy for the thousandth time the voluminous momentoes 
of the war which adorned the walls and tables of his 
home. Often an even greater pleasure was his—Mrs. 
Dewey would read to him, selecting the reading matter 
with that placid catholicity of taste and that unerring 
instinct for all the good things between covers for 
which she was remarkable. The Admiral was humbly 
aware of his own great deficiency in literary matters 
as compared with his wife’s superior talent: “She has 
a wonderful mind and her capabilities are limitless,” 
he said. “Mrs. Dewey . . . reads everything and se¬ 
lects my lighter reading; and as our tastes are similar 
that saves time.” But he did not, following his wife’s 
example, read wholly in the copious and uniformly 
excellent period that stretches from Scott to Kipling; 
he carefully perused volumes in which even his intellec¬ 
tually omnivorous spouse had little interest—books 
dealing with naval and international matters, which 
she found very tiresome indeed. 

At the winter home in Washington, his diversions 
were of a different and on the whole less pleasant kind. 
After the spacious freedom of Beauvoir, the city house 
seemed rather cramped and stuffy; but there were com¬ 
pensations. With the abundant means which they pos¬ 
sessed, the fortunate pair were able to entertain freely; 
for, in addition to Mrs. Dewey’s munificent fortune, 
the Admiral was paid almost $30,000 in 1903, as an 
emolument in the form of prize money for the Spanish 





138 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


ships he had captured. At the “Mondays-at-home” 
which they delighted to keep, society turned out in 
great numbers and Dewey thoroughly enjoyed the 
pampering compliments with which his guests liberally 
sprinkled him. He enjoyed, also, representing the 
navy at all sorts of public ceremonials: at banquets, at 
receptions, at solemn occasions when he was invited 
to speak the magic words which stripped the drapery 
from the statue of some politician, or other public bene¬ 
factor, whose virtues were judged worthy of permanent 
petrifaction. But, as the Admiral grew older, he 
guarded his health more carefully and finally refused 
to attend any dinner or social engagement, except the 
annual banquet of the pertinacious Manila Bay Society. 
His formula for longevity was simplicity itself: “But¬ 
termilk, lots of fresh air and a simple life,” he said. 
Quite properly, therefore, he would not go to the the¬ 
aters, because to have done so would have prevented 
him from retiring at nine o’clock; and then besides, 
there was “too much foul air” in them. 

It was for this reason that, much as he wanted to see 
it, he denied himself the pleasure of going to a cinema 
in which the inevitable destruction of all American 
cities and the complete subjugation of America itself 
from coast to coast by naughty Germans was convinc¬ 
ingly portrayed. Washington was accustomed every 
day to see his familiar figure driving about in a vic¬ 
toria; for old age was making him fond of a leisurely 
tranquillity which the automobile would have made 
impossible. His horror of funerals was pronounced, 
and he wisely refused to attend them. “A funeral is 
depressing,” he said, “and if I went to many I should 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


139 


soon go to my own”—a contingency to be avoided at 
any cost. Living thus, at the advanced age of seventy- 
eight he was still a “picture of ruddy vigor, unwrinkled, 
unshrunken, and hard as a monkey wrench.” His inter¬ 
est in the navy remained to the end; it should, he 
insisted in 1915, be second to none; and the nation 
applauded the wisdom, the timeliness, and the origi¬ 
nality of his opinion. As the years crept by, he came 
to be regarded, indeed, more and more as a sage, a 
national Mentor, and was venerated almost as though 
he had been an ex-President, a quondam sinful ball¬ 
player turned evangelist, or a world’s champion pugilist 
converted, more by decrepitude than by spiritual re¬ 
generation, to a preacher against youthful debaucheries 
and to an ardent advocate of teetotalism. 

When at last, through the working of nature’s inex¬ 
orable laws, the Admiral began to fail, his decline was 
so slow and undiscernible that it was for a long time 
unnoticed; so proud was he of his health that he did 
not tell even his most intimate friends the ominous 
truth—that a gradual hardening of the arteries was 
steadily wearing him down. For a year and a half the 
disease progressed, until, near the middle of January, 
1917, he was compelled to take to his bed. He lin¬ 
gered on for five or six days, alternating between a 
delirious and semi-comatose condition until the after¬ 
noon of the 15th, when he lost consciousness entirely; 
but the rugged heart still throbbed in the inanimate 
body, wearily tenacious of existence, even after sentient 
life had fled forever. At five minutes of six on the 
next day, just after the early winter night had fallen, 
as Mrs. Dewey sat convulsively clutching her husband’s 




140 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


stiffening hand, gazing at his expressionless features 
in the agonizing hope of seeing a final gleam of 
recognition, the heart pulsated more and more faintly, 
then almost imperceptibily—and then it stopped alto¬ 
gether. 

The news of the Admiral’s death was immediately 
flashed to all corners of the earth, and from every 
side messages of condolence poured in. Five days later 
the funeral was held—an occasion which for dignity, 
solemnity and pomp of ceremonial panoply exceeded 
all similar events since the death of McKinley. By 
Presidential decree all official Washington came to a 
standstill, all business places were closed, and the Presi¬ 
dent, the Cabinet, the members of Congress and the 
representatives of foreign nations attended the impos¬ 
ing obsequies. At eleven o’clock the body was carried 
tenderly into the rotunda of the Capitol, and placed 
on the catafalque which had been built for Lincoln 
and had borne the remains of Garfield, McKinley and 
other national servants. The ceremony was brief; a 
few selections of Scripture were read, and “Lead, 
Kindly Light’’ and “Abide With Me” were sung. 
Twelve bluejackets, who acted as pallbearers, then 
placed the casket on an artillery caisson, and the stately 
funeral cortege proceeded slowly along a road lined 
with thousands of mutely reverent spectators to Arling¬ 
ton Cemetery. As the body was placed in the sepul¬ 
chre, three volleys, fired by midshipmen, and nineteen 
guns from the adjacent Fort Myer, sounded a martial 
requiem for the dead commander. 

At almost the same time, and almost within hearing 
of the mourners at Arlington, another martial requiem 




ADMIRAL DEWEY 


141 

was being sounded. For America was once more upon 
the verge of war; a far more powerful American navy 
was preparing for the imminent contest, as Dewey had 
prepared nineteen years earlier, by engaging in target 
practice; and its target was one of the proud ships 
from Dewey’s victorious squadron. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Adams, Chas. Francis, Imperialism. Dana Estes & Co., 
Boston, 1898. 

Alger, Russell A., The Spanish-American War . Harper & 
Bros., New York, 1901. 

Atkinson, Edward, Anti-Imperialist (series of articles), Vol. 
I, 1900 ff. 

Baker, Abby G., At Home with Admiral and Mrs. Dewey. 

Woman’s Home Companion, May, 1904. 

Barnes, James, The Story of Dewey's Welcome Home. 
Outlook, Oct. 7, 1899. 

Barrett, John, Admiral George Dewey. Harper’s Maga¬ 
zine, Oct., 1899. 

Chadwick, F. E., The Spanish-American War. Charles 
Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1911. 

Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain . . . from 
April 13, 1898 , to July 30 , 1902. Government Printing 
Office, Washington, D. C., 1902. 

Davis, O. K., Stories of Admiral Dewey. McClure’s, Oct., 

1899- 

Dewey, A. M. (and others), The Life and Letters of Admiral 
Dewey. The Woodfall Co., New York, 1899. 

Dewey, George, Autobiography of George Dewey. Charles 
Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1913. 

Funston, Frederick, Memories of Two Wars. Charles 
Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1911. 




142 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Kelly, Fred, Why Admiral Dewey Is Well at 78. American 
Magazine, Sept., 1916. 

Latanei, J. H., America as a World Power. Harper & Bros., 
New York, 1907. 

Leroy, James A., The Americans in the Philippines. Two 
volumes. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, 1914. 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, The War with Spain. Harper & Bros., 
New York, 1899. 

Long, John D., The New American Navy. Two volumes. 
Outlook Co., New York, 1903. 

Mahan, Alfred T., Lessons of the War with Spain. Little, 
Brown & Co., Boston, 1899. 

Miles, Nelson A., Serving the Republic. Harper & Bros., 
New York, 1911. 

Military Notes on the Philippines. Government Printing 
Office, 1898. 

Mrs. Dewey. Current Literature, June, 1900. 

New York Nation. 

Olcott, Charles S., The Life of William McKinley. Two 
volumes. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, 1916. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, Admiral Dewey. McClure’s, Oct., 
1899; The Rough Riders. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New 
York, 1899. 

Senate Document No. 66, 56th Congress, 1st Session. Govern¬ 
ment Printing Office, 1900. 

Senate Document No. 331, part 3, 37th Congress, 1st Session. 
Government Printing Office, 1902. 

Stickney, J. L., With Dewey at Manila. Harper’s Magazine, 
Feb., 1899 f With Dewey in the Mediterranean. Mc¬ 
Clure’s, Oct., 1899. 

U. S. Philippine Commission. Report of the Philippine Com¬ 
missioners to the President. Government Printing Office, 
1900-01. 

Vanderlip, Frank A., Facts. About the Philippines. Century, 
August, 1898. 






ADMIRAL DEWEY 


143 


Vivian, Thomas J., With Dewey at Manila. Fenno & Co., 
New York, 1898. 

Willis, H. Parker, Our Philippine Problem. H. Holt & Co., 
New York, 1905. 

Wilson, H. W., The Downfall of Spain . Little, Brown & 
Co., Boston, 1900. 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


For thirty-three years Brigham Young ruled over 
Mormonism with absolute power. During those years 
he established a four-fold dictatorship: a dictatorship 
over religion, politics, economics and society. He was 
Mormonism’s President, Governor, and Social Lion— 
in a word, the “Lion of the Lord.” Humble in origin, 
poor, ignorant, uncouth and wholly self-dependent as he 
was, he welded together a mere handful of unlettered 
enthusiasts, conquered apostasy, directed the exodus 
of the little band, through unspeakable hardships and 
privations, over nearly two thousand miles of howling 
wildernesses and deserts to Utah, where he founded 
a Sovereign State that held the United States in con¬ 
temptuous disregard. He hurled audacious defiance 
into the teeth of authority everywhere: he challenged 
the United States Government to fight him and made 
it back down; he said that Lincoln was “as weak as 
water,” that “Zachary Taylor is dead and in hell, and 
1 am glad of it”; he called a Supreme Court Judge a 
“baby-calf” and advised him to “go home to his 
mammy straight.” No Oriental potentate, no king, 
no czar ever governed with a hand of iron more power¬ 
ful than the hand of Brigham Young; he had, he said, 
but to “crook his little finger” in order to make every 
Mormon do his bidding. And this curious phenome¬ 
non, this social anachronism, this anarchical monarchy 

144 


BRIGHAM YOUNG 


i45 


manifested itself in the latter part of the nineteenth 
century, in the onward rush of progress, of modernism 
in political, scientific and religious thought, and in the 
greatest democracy the world has seen. 

How could such things be? The anomaly of Mor- 
monism arouses, in an inquiring mind, a whole series 
of interrogation points. Were these frenzied fanatics, 
these “Western Turks,” quite as fanatical, as indecent, 
as dangerous, and as crazy as the Christian world has 
so tirelessly reiterated? Or, was the Christian world 
itself wrong, at least in part? Was there something in 
the bland and smiling optimism of the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury that repelled certain ardent souls, and impelled 
them to seek a sterner, more rigorous discipline ? 
Were the Mormons actually mad and dangerous, or 
were they thus contemned because they refused to con¬ 
form to normal Christian conventions? Did Puritanic 
Americans denounce the immorality of polygamy 
largely because of fierce and bitter jealousy—because 
the Mormons legitimatized natural instincts which the 
Puritans strove with might and main, but not wholly 
with success, to inhibit? In their vast ignorance, their 
simplicity of manners, their endurance of the hardships 
of settlement life, their bravery against hostile Indians 
and Christians, their child-like faith in their leaders, 
were not the Mormons almost more puritanical than 
the Puritans themselves? And, even if Smith and 
Young, together with their high priests and apostles, 
were rather scoundrelly, lecherous fellows, was not the 
great mass of Mormons reasonably decent, law-abiding 
and even patriotic? It may well be that no definite 
answer to any of these queries is obtainable— for the 




146 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


amount of spoken and written mendacity concerning 
Mormonism is almost unparalleled; Mormon ingenuity 
in lying has been surpassed only by superior Christian 
cleverness—but it may at least be possible to get some 
information, and perhaps some entertainment, by 
glancing briefly at certain aspects of Brigham Young’s 
career. 


I 

In April, 1832, there occurred an event of momen¬ 
tous importance in the history of Mormonism. Brig¬ 
ham Young, then a mere cub lion of the Lord, arrived 
at Kirtland, Ohio, to gaze for the first time upon 
Prophet Joseph Smith. The Prophet, who only a 
month previously had been tarred and feathered by 
a band of righteously minded Christians, was attempt¬ 
ing to soothe his ruffled feelings by cutting and hauling 
wood. He bade the newcomer welcome and, on the 
evening of the same day, asked him to lead the small 
company of faithful ones in prayer. “In my prayer,” 
says Young, “I spoke in tongues. As soon as we arose 
from our knees, the brethren flocked around him, and 
asked his opinion concerning the gift of tongues that 
was upon me. He told them it was the pure Adamic 
language. Some said to him they expected he would 
condemn the gift, but he said ‘no, it is of God; and the 
time will come when Brother Brigham Young will pre¬ 
side over the Church.’ ” Events proved that this was 
one of the very few prophecies made by Smith that 
turned out to be true. Twelve years later, he was 
assassinated; the awful news reached Young while he 
was in New Hampshire, and, with characteristic 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


i47 


promptness of decision, he showed that he proposed to 
do his own part toward fulfilling the prophecy. “The 
first thing that I thought of,” he wrote later, “was 
whether Joseph had taken the keys of the kingdom 
with him from the earth. Brother Orson Pratt sat 
on my left; we were both leaning back in our chairs. 
Bringing my hand down on my knee, I said, the keys 
of the kingdom are right here with the Church.” And 
it was not long before the keys were in an even more 
definitely material place—in Brigham’s pocket, where 
they remained in absolute safety for more than thirty 
years. 

Little that had happened in Young’s life thus far 
would have led anyone, save a veritable prophet, to 
foresee such a result. Born of poor parents in Ver¬ 
mont, on June 1, 1801, Young had spent his youth 
working as a carpenter, painter and glazier. The year 
1830 found him, married and mildly Methodistic, liv¬ 
ing in Monroe County, New York, where he one day 
chanced to see a copy of the Mormon Bible; and that 
was a bad day for John Wesley. Young found “the 
transition from Methodism to Mormonism easy,” as 
some one (not a Methodist) has remarked; and yet, 
after all, it was not too easy, for, so he informs us, he 
“examined the new Bible for two years before deciding 
to receive it.” 

Many others, who have finally waded through the 
holy book, will sympathize with Young’s cautious pro¬ 
crastination, although they may have failed to see much 
mystery either in the book or in its author. Like most 
religious leaders, Smith had inherited a super-sensitive 
nervous system. In his youth he suffered from vertigo, 





148 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


and from a variety of hallucinations: he heard voices, 
he reveled in fantastic ecstasies, he was excessively 
secretive and distrustful. Reared in a backwoods New 
York community that teemed with Indian burial places, 
he early became a mound-digger; with the help of 
divining rods and “seer stones,” which were then com¬ 
monly used to locate springs and secret treasure, he 
went around spading.and peeping into mounds, until 
he was familiarly known as “Peep-stone Joe.” The 
rest was easy; by a perfectly natural process, he became 
a dreamer of vertiginous dreams, a vaticinator and a 
crystal-gazer. Finally, in a state of self-hypnosis in¬ 
duced by glaring for protracted periods through two 
prisms of glass, he produced a huge mass of automatic 
writing. It seems probable, also, that glassware in 
another form had something to do with this inspired 
penmanship. “Joseph drank too much liquor when he 
was translating the Book of Mormon,” a close friend 
of his remarked; and he went on to say that “this thing 
occurred previous to the translating of the Book.” The 
Prophet himself was quite ready, as always, with an 
explanation; it was necessary for him to get drunk 
occasionally, he said, in order that his followers might 
not worship him like a god. With such a history, was 
it any wonder that he finally believed he had dug up 
golden plates containing the Mormon creed; that, with 
the aid of two magic crystals, “Urin and Thummin,” 
he was able to translate the mystic characters on the 
golden plates; that eventually he became the exclusive 
mouthpiece of God, until “revelations” popped from 
his lips every day as a matter of course; and that, in 
the end, he came to believe that he was greater than 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


149 


God himself? Five months before his death, he spoke 
thus: “I know more than all the world put to¬ 
gether. ... I combat the error of the ages. ... I 
cut the Gordian knot of powers, and I solve mathemati¬ 
cal problems of universities WITH TRUTH, dia¬ 
mond truth, and God IS MY RIGHT-HAND 
MAN.” 

Brigham Young, however, had to rest satisfied for 
some years with the position of left-hand man to the 
Prophet. His conversion successfully accomplished in 
1832, Young rapidly won first place in Smith’s affec¬ 
tions, and he won it for two reasons. By hard work, 
by discretion in speech, and by an apparent self-efface¬ 
ment that actually kept him in the limelight, he demon¬ 
strated his ability as an organizer of movements and 
a leader of men; furthermore, it was Young, more than 
any other man, who prevented apostasy from making 
fatal inroads among the “Latter-day Saints of the 
Church of Jesus Christ.” 

The church itself grew rapidly. In those early days, 
when religious revivals flourished luxuriantly in every 
primitive community, any form of superstitious ex¬ 
travaganza was sure to attract numerous followers; 
and Mormonism had attractions peculiar to itself. It 
had its own Bible—a Bible whose dominant appeal, like 
that of all holy writ, lay in the fact that no one could 
understand it. Its chief plot was concerned with the 
origin of the American Indian; but the whole book was 
a crazy-quilt patchwork of ideas that evaporated from 
Smith’s abnormal mentality: old wives’ tales of Indian 
outrages, Old Testament myths, chronicles and stock 
phrases, all jumbled together in a jargon of repetitions, 




150 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


metaphysical buffooneries, contradictory statements, 
and excessively bad grammar. The fact that, accord¬ 
ing to Smith, it was originally inscribed on the golden 
plates in Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic char¬ 
acters presented no obstacle, for Urin and Thummin 
rendered the translation ridiculously easy. Besides, 
on his own testimony, he could “read Greek as fast as 
a horse can run”—a statement which he amply proved, 
when, on being requested to translate the contents of 
an ancient Greek manuscript, he examined it briefly and 
confidently remarked: “It ain’t Greek at all, except 
perhaps a few words. What ain’t Greek is Egyptian, 
and what ain’t Egyptian is Greek.” 

After the marvelous Mormon document had been 
rendered into an absolutely sui generis English, Smith 
and his coadjutors evolved a theological and theocratic 
system that was also sui generis, even though it was 
purloined from a variety of sources. In general, it was 
based upon Biblical material: three leaders correspond¬ 
ing to the Trinity were at its head, and they were 
backed up by twelve assistants who corresponded to 
the Twelve Apostles. But Methodism supplied the 
practical details of the new hierarchy—the Methodism 
of the circuit-rider days, with its excellent organization 
of local and itinerant clergy, its evangelists, bishops, 
teachers, conferences and societies. In particular, the 
miraculous was recognized: demonology, faith-healing 
and speaking in tongues. The demons appeared usu¬ 
ally at the end of hypochondriac prayer meetings, and 
chiefly affected the Mormons of tender years. Young 
men and women “would exhibit all the apish actions 
imaginable, making the most ridiculous grimaces . . . 





Brigham Young 



















































































































■ 
























BRIGHAM YOUNG 


1 5 1 

rolling upon the frozen ground, go through with all the 
Indian modes of warfare, such as knocking down, scalp¬ 
ing, and ripping open and tearing out the bowels.” 
These hellish convulsions were popularly separated 
into the falling, jerking, rolling and dancing varieties; 
and the demons showed special delight in laying hold 
of the wicked “while guarding against them and curs¬ 
ing every jerk.” Belief in devil-possession led natu¬ 
rally to belief in the power to cast out devils, and dis¬ 
eases too, through the laying on of hands. It is written 
that, in 1839, Smith first cured himself of a prevalent 
fever and then, going among large numbers of the sick, 
“commanded them in a loud voice to come up and be 
made whole and they were healed.” Young, however, 
was more modest than Smith; he once wisely refused 
to restore a lost leg to a Mormon on the ground that, 
if he did so, the man would have to walk on three legs 
through all eternity. Speaking in tongues soon came 
to be all the rage. When the temple was dedicated at 
Kirtland, Young “made an address which neither he 
nor anyone else could understand.” On one occasion, 
an inspired female leapt up and shrieked, “Melai, 
Meli, Melee!”; then a rara avis among Mormons—a 
man with a sense of humor—waggishly stated that 
“the gift of interpretation of tongues” was upon him, 
and translated the lady’s screech into “my leg, my 
thigh, my knee.” For this he was called before the 
council, but he steadfastly reiterated that his transla¬ 
tion was divinely directed and was let off with an 
admonition. 

As the Mormons were forced to make one hegira 
after another, Young’s star continued in the ascen- 





152 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


dency. Driven out of Western New York in the early 
thirties, they tarried for some years at Kirtland; but 
by January, 1838, Kirtland, with its newly completed 
$40,000 temple, had to be abandoned. In order to 
finance a land-speculation scheme, Smith had founded 
a bank which, it had been divinely revealed to him, 
“would swallow up all other banks”; but unfortunately 
the bank itself was swallowed up by irate creditors 
whom he found it convenient not to repay. The 
Prophet was then forced to flee on horseback, although 
he explained that his flight was governed by the words 
of Jesus: “When they persecute you in one city, flee ye 
to another.” Then followed a year of hectic wander¬ 
ings through Missouri, where the Mormons were 
driven from county to county: the Missourians believed 
that the Mormons were seeking political control with 
even more fervor than they sought religious proselytes; 
the Mormons believed that the Missouri “mobs” of 
indignant Christians were inspired by the devil—and 
both were apparently right. Hostilities resulted, and 
Governor Boggs finally stated that the Mormons 
“must be exterminated or driven from the State” 
They naturally chose to be driven out; and by April, 
1839, they reached Illinois in an almost destitute con¬ 
dition. 

But now, for the first time, fortune seemed to smile 
upon them. A residence of six months in Illinois gave 
the right to vote; and the vote of some thousands of 
Mormons was not to be despised. Hardly had they 
settled at Nauvoo, on the east bank of the Mississippi, 
when Whigs and Democrats alike began to fawn on 
them. Smith, who was appointed “Lieutenant Gen- 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


i 53 


eral” of Nauvoo, played his hand so well that for 
several years both parties wheedled, scraped and genu¬ 
flected before him. It was only natural that such flat¬ 
tery went to his addled head; that he overplayed his 
hand until both Democrats and Whigs grew suspicious 
of him; that finally, with superb self-assurance, he in¬ 
cluded both parties in a comprehensive damnation and 
ran for President himself—and thus brought about his 
own downfall. In 1844 he exceeded the bounds of 
authority given him, by calling upon his Nauvoo 
Legion to suppress a local journal that was accusing 
the Mormon leaders of counterfeiting and criminal 
speculations in church property. Charged with treason 
in levying war against the State, the Prophet, with his 
brother Hyrum, was jailed. On June 27 a mob broke 
into the jail, and, by means of several bullets, instan¬ 
taneously forced the “Buckler of Jehovah” to lay down 
his arms and earthly cares, and depart to dwell with 
his right-hand man forever. A new leader had to be 
chosen—the hour of fate had struck for Brigham 
Young. 

Fate, however, was aided considerably by Young 
himself. The news of the murder reached him in the 
East, where he was campaigning for the election of the 
Prophet to the presidency; but, inasmuch as the 
Prophet had been elected to an even higher position, 
Young’s labors were no longer necessary and he jour¬ 
neyed posthaste to Nauvoo, where he arrived on Au¬ 
gust 6. On the morning of the 8th his opportunity 
came, and he seized it with the avidity of the born 
commander of men. Sidney Rigdon, the “brains of 
Mormonism,” was the only one of the Trinity who 





154 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


remained alive, and Young was President of the 
Twelve; the question was, which one ought by right to 
be elevated to the now vacant apex of the religious tri¬ 
angle? Rigdon declared that knowledge had been 
vouchsafed him in a vision that he should be the 
supreme guardian of the church; but Rigdon was not 
astute enough to see that visions were the special pre¬ 
rogative of the deceased Prophet—what was now 
wanted was not a visionary, but a man of compelling 
force and dauntless determination. “Attention all!” 
The voice of Young rang out above the assembly. 
“Here is Brigham, have his knees ever faltered? Have 
his lips ever quivered? . . . Elder Rigdon claims to 
be a spokesman to the Prophet. Very well, he was; 
but can he now act in office? If he wants now to be a 
spokesman to the Prophet, he must go to the other side 
of the veil, for the Prophet is there; but Elder Rigdon 
is here. Why will Elder Rigdon be a fool? I am 
plain. I will ask, who has stood next to Joseph and 
Hyrum? I have, and I will stand next to them.” Just 
then a wondrous miracle occurred. “As Brigham pro¬ 
ceeded,” we are assured, “his whole being became 
transfigured; his face shone like an angel’s; his form 
seemed to dilate and expand, as though he were being 
lifted from the floor; his voice changed; his look, his 
very manner was that of another. IT WAS JOSEPH, 
NOT BRIGHAM, WHO WAS SPEAKING! Thou¬ 
sands saw it and testified to its truth.” 

Who could doubt it? Young had triumphed, and 
Rigdon fled to Pittsburgh and apostatized; but it is 
comforting to learn that he soon received the just re¬ 
ward of the wicked. One night, while asleep, he was 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


U 5 


aroused by a mighty shake and awoke to feel the hand 
of Satan on his collar. The devil “proceeded to tilt 
up the bed and handle Sidney most roughly; and then, 
taking him by the legs, trundled him down the stairs as 
one would drag a wheelbarrow behind him, without 
mercy on the gray head as it thumped every step; and, 
finally, landing the sufferer in the street, disappeared 
4 like smoke / ” 

The transmigratory process that had metamor¬ 
phosed Young into Smith was, of course, not perma¬ 
nent;. for the second time the Prophet ascended to 
heaven, to return no more, and Young stepped back 
into his own shoes. He was crafty enough to realize 
that his forte lay, not in divinely inspired and no less 
divinely ungrammatical revelations, but in acting as 
executor of the Prophet’s teachings. On August 15 he 
spoke thus: “Let no man presume for a moment that 
his [Smith’s] place will be filled by another; for, 
remember he stands in his own place, and always 
will. . . .” On a previous occasion he had been even 
more explicit: “The doctrine he [Smith] teaches is 
all I know about the matter; bring anything against it 
that you can. As to anything else, I do not care if he 
acts like a devil; he has brought forth a doctrine that 
will save us if we will abide by it. He may get drunk 
every day of his life, sleep with his neighbor’s wife 
every night, run horses and gamble, I do not care any¬ 
thing about that. . . .” How, indeed, could Young 
have expected to better such a many-sided philosophy? 

On December 24, 1847, Young was finally elected 
to the position of President of the Mormon Trinity. 
His comment upon his election was eminently in keep- 




STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


156 

mg with the comments of many other successful presi¬ 
dential candidates. “This is one of the happiest days 
of my life,” he said. 

But his happiness as leader was considerably toned 
down by a sense of his responsibilities. The sympathy 
that had been aroused for the Mormons because of the 
persecutions they had suffered, and because of the halo 
of martyrdom that now encircled the “Great Martyr 
of the Nineteenth Century”—a sympathy that had 
made many new converts—was, after all, not lasting. 
Renewed persecutions arose, even more violent than 
any that had thus far injured them; it was evident that 
another exodus must be undertaken. But this would 
be the last. The Children of Israel were determined 
not to pause on their journey through the Wilderness 
until the Promised Land was reached; and fortunately 
they had a Moses to lead them. 

And so there began one of the most remarkable mi¬ 
grations known to history. Some twenty thousand 
people, whose appalling ignorance was matched only 
by an equally appalling enthusiasm for their religion, 
abandoned Nauvoo “The Beautiful,” abandoned al¬ 
most all their personal effects, and started, mostly on 
foot, upon a two thousand mile journey through a 
country almost entirely unexplored, through shaggy 
forests and long stretches of arid wastes, toward an 
indefinite Utopia. The privations they endured were 
almost incredible: driven finally from their homes by 
a besieging artillery force, they fled in utter confusion 
across the Mississippi; whole families fled with only 
so many of their possessions as they could carry by 
hand; the sick and wounded were carried on litters. 





BRIGHAM YOUNG 


U7 


Then, company by company, they journeyed toward 
that vague place called “California”—a term that 
included nearly one-third of the United States. A 
large part of the journey was accomplished in mid¬ 
winter; snow, rain, mud, swollen rivers and treacherous 
ice alternately threatened them; to wake in the morning 
and find the bedding frozen stiff was a common occur¬ 
rence. But the fire of a feverish faith burnt within 
their souls; and, like a cloud by day and a pillar of fire 
by night, Brigham Young led them on. Back and 
forth across the trackless wilds he journeyed, comfort¬ 
ing the sick, chiding the discouraged, and commending 
the strong. His own comment epitomizes the spirit 
of the entire expedition: “It looks pleasant ahead, but 
dark to look back. . . . The Lord is with us, and 
praised be his name, all is well. Glory! Hallelujah! 
And I think I shall feel more so when we get a few 
miles farther west.” 

They all felt more so; for, whether or no Young was 
inspired by genuine faith, he was certainly gifted with 
a great deal of hard-headed common sense. In order 
to mitigate the hardships of the journey, he organized 
“Traveling Stakes of Zion”—temporary camps, where 
the slower travelers could find definite shelter and pro¬ 
visions. And he varied the monotony of incessant 
labor, exhortations, hymns and prayers with entertain¬ 
ments of a decidedly worldly nature. Many a dreary 
evening was lightened when, with the highest Mormon 
dignitaries setting an example, the refugees clicked 
their heels to the tune of “Virginia reels and Copen¬ 
hagen jigs.” 

On July 24, 1847, “Promised Land” was first 




158 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


sighted. Young had answered the petitions of anxious 
disciples, who wanted to know how he would recognize 
the holy spot, by stating that the Lord would direct 
him. Suddenly, on that day, the valley of the Great 
Salt Lake, “held in reserve by God, as a resting place 
for his Saints,” came into view; and, like his prototype, 
the modern Moses knew that he was on Mount Pisgah, 
though he happened just then to be lying on his back 
in a carriage and suffering from “mountain fever.” An 
encampment was made on the place where Salt Lake 
City now stands; and on the following Sunday, after 
the pioneers had “shaved and cleaned up,” the Presi¬ 
dent, still “too feeble to stand, sat in his armchair and 
laid down the law.” The land, he said, was to be free; 
none could buy and none could sell; but every one 
should have his share measured out to him. Several 
days later he made a portentous remark; he “observed 
that he intended to have every hole and corner from 
the Bay of San Francisco to Hudson Bay. . . .” By 
September, 1848, the last company of straggling 
Mormons had reached the “Promised Land”; the last 
exodus of the “Chosen Race” was finished; but the 
career of Brigham Young had only commenced. 

II 

Although the Mormons were now on the threshold 
of a new era—an era destined to make them a political 
and social force that still holds sway—the prospect for 
them was discouraging in the extreme; the exigencies 
of the situation were formidable enough to have palsied 
the stoutest hearts. Like the Pilgrim Fathers of old, 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


159 


they were arrayed against nature—virgin, hostile and 
forbidding. Fertile valleys were few; they had few 
implements of agriculture or of the handicrafts in gen¬ 
eral; they knew almost nothing about the soil and the 
climate. For the first few years, they trembled almost 
daily on the brink of material ruin: droughts, only par¬ 
tially alleviated by irrigation, stunted or killed their 
grains, and grasshoppers devoured a large part of what 
was left; timber was scarce, and at first their dwellings 
were made of adobe bricks, while chests and barrels 
served for tables and mere bunks served for beds. But 
always, everywhere, the form of Brigham Young domi¬ 
nated the scene. His youthful training now came to 
his aid, and he shared in the common labor of building 
houses and cultivating land; he praised the industrious, 
and scourged the laggards and fault-finders with all 
the force of his bizarre, graphic and powerful rhetoric. 
When complainers accused him of despotism, he boast¬ 
fully admitted the charge, and denounced them from 
the pulpit. “Do you know,” he asked, “how I feel 
when I get such communications? I feel just like rub¬ 
bing their noses with them.” It was, he said, his “privi¬ 
lege to dictate to the church,” and, “you have got to 
bear it, and if you will not, make up your minds to go 
to hell at once and have done with it. . . .” “You 
need, figuratively, to have it rain pitchforks, tines 
downward, from this pulpit, Sunday after Sun¬ 
day. . . “I ask no advice of you nor of all your 

clan this side of hell.” No wonder the transgressors 
trembled in silence and slunk fearfully away, to sin no 
more! 

Meanwhile something happened that had far-reach- 





i6o 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


ing consequences—something that aided Mormonism 
more than all the revelations of Smith or the labors 
and censures of Young. Gold was discovered in Cali¬ 
fornia, and the first rush of prospectors passed through 
Salt Lake Valley in 1849. The long journey across 
the plains had made them almost destitute by the time 
Mormon territory was reached, and in their frenetic 
fury they were willing to sacrifice anything—anything 
'—in order to reach the Eldorado of their dreams with 
all possible haste. Young saw and seized his opportu¬ 
nity: pack horses and mules, worth thirty dollars at 
most, cost the prospectors $200; flour cost them a 
dollar a pound. As the years passed, gold-hunters 
gave way to emigrants who were seeking permanent 
homes on the coast; thus the harvest of high prices 
continued to be reaped, and the Mormon coffers con¬ 
tinued to swell. When “Gentiles” finally began to 
settle in Mormon territory, Young fiercely berated 
their merchants and organized Zion’s Cooperative 
Mercantile Institution which, during his life-time, held 
competition in check. A large sign, bearing an “all- 
seeing eye” and the words “Holiness to the Lord,” was 
placed over every Mormon merchant’s door. Mormon 
prices might occasionally be higher than Gentile prices, 
and some weak Mormons might be tempted with the 
ubiquitous Gentile weakness of bargain-seeking; but, 
wherever they went, the terrific all-seeing eye glittered 
and burnt into their very souls—and so most of them 
remained unspotted from the world. 

Thus, step by step, Young evolved schemes that 
brought his people out of poverty into affluence; but 
of what use was material success save it were accompa- 





__BRIGHAM YOUNG_ 161 

nied by political freedom? Utah had originally been 
a Mexican province; but the Guadalupe-Hidalgo 
Treaty of July 4, 1848, brought it under the dominion 
of the United States. With lightning rapidity the 
tables had been turned: before the treaty, the Mor¬ 
mons had been practically free from governmental con¬ 
trol; now, they were wholly within its grasp. Young 
decided, also with lightning rapidity, that he wanted 
an independent state government, not a mere territorial 
organization. But the population of Utah was far too 
small to warrant its admission as a state of the Union; 
a greater number of residents was therefore necessary, 
and Young was determined to get them by hook or 
crook. 

With this end in view, he proceeded, first of all, to 
offer every possible inducement to Mormons in foreign 
lands in order that they might be tempted into coming 
to Utah. Mormon missionaries were instructed to be¬ 
little the rigors of settlement life, and to paint a glow¬ 
ing picture of the Garden of Eden that awaited them. 
Who could resist the seductive appeal of such a verse 
as this, taken from a Mormon hymn which Mormons 
themselves agreed was a “poem, vast in compass of 
idea, if not strictly artistic in versification”? 

Come, ye Christian sects and pagans, 

Indians, Moslems, Greek and Jew, 

Worshipers of God or Dagon, 

Freedom’s banner waves for you. 

It was pointed out that the end of the world was 
imminent—wars, anarchy, persecutions, fire and sword 
were to desolate the earth—and surely, when all people 





162 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


except Mormons were calling upon the mountains and 
the rocks to hide them from the wrath of God, all good 
Mormons would want to gather on the only earthly 
spot on which the Lord would smile. Such material 
and spiritual persuasions were naturally successful, and 
boatload after boatload came. Young at first fur¬ 
nished the travelers with wagons and teams for the 
exhausting pilgrimage from the East to the West; but 
this proved to be too expensive, and finally he provided 
only handcarts, with the cheering exhortation, “Let the 
emigrants foot it.” They did foot it—as many as were 
strong; but fever, cold and even starvation killed the 
weak by the score, and the trail became dotted with 
rude crosses marking the graves of the unfortunate. 
By 1852, in spite of all efforts only some six thousand, 
most of whom were unwed women, had reached Utah. 
The population was increasing far too slowly to suit 
Young’s wishes; but it must—it must —be increased, 
and he therefore played his trump card—polygamy. 

Fortunately, the Prophet himself had made the play¬ 
ing of the card easy. To be sure Smith had stated, 
both in the Book of Mormon and in other revelations, 
that it was highly immoral for a man to have more 
than one wife. Nevertheless, in spite of his warnings, 
the official church publication had admitted that “many 
yielded to the spirit of adultery” in the early days at 
Kirtland; at Kirtland, also, Smith had been forced to 
divulge a special revelation for the benefit of a high 
church dignitary: “Commit no adultery, a temptation 
with which thou hast been troubled.” Perhaps he 
brooded too much on such matters; at any rate, his 
own handsome face and figure, and his tempestuous 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


163 


emotionalism, soon brought the “American Moham¬ 
med” into difficulties. He was discovered in a de¬ 
cidedly compromising situation with a half-witted girl 
in an out-house; he visited the wife of a Mormon friend 
in the middle of the night, and she admitted that 
“Joseph had asked her to give him half her love; she 
was at liberty to keep the other half for her husband”; 
and his fame spread abroad in the land. The situation 
was very satisfactorily summed up by an irascible Mor¬ 
mon lady, when she observed that Smith “either must 
have been a polygamist or something infinitely worse.” 
When women accused him of attempted seduction, he 
replied that his actions had been prompted wholly by 
a praiseworthy desire to “see if they were virtuous”; 
his audacity, in fact, was surpassed only by one of his 
close friends, who rashly attempted to teach the doc¬ 
trine of love to some women who, Smith had deter¬ 
mined, were to be his own exclusive pupils. Finally, in 
order to save his face, he decided that he must explode 
another celestial bomb, which would destroy all previ¬ 
ous revelations concerning a plurality of wives; and on 
July 12, 1843, there appeared in Nauvoo a “Revela¬ 
tion on the Eternity of the Marriage Covenant, in¬ 
cluding Plurality of Wives. Given by Joseph, the 
Seer. . . .” Its chief arguments were as follows: 
“there were a number of spirits to be born into the 
world before their exaltation in the next; that Christ 
would not come until all these spirits received or 
entered their ‘Tabernacles of Clay’; that these spirits 
were hovering around the world, and at the door of 
bad houses, waiting a chance of getting into their taber¬ 
nacles; that God had provided an honorable way for 




164 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


them to come forth—that was, by the Elders in Israel 
sealing up virtuous women; and as there was no provi¬ 
sion made for woman in the Scriptures, their only 
chance of heaven was to be sealed up to some Elder for 
time and eternity, and be a star in his crown forever; 
that those who were the cause of bringing forth these 
spirits would receive a reward, the ratio of which re¬ 
ward should be the greater or less according to the 
number they were the means of bringing forth.” In¬ 
asmuch as the Prophet’s wife, Emma, was already re¬ 
bellious because of his various escapades, the Prophet 
was particularly pleased when the Lord spoke through 
his servant’s lips in this wise: “I command mine hand¬ 
maid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my ser¬ 
vant Joseph, and to none else . . . if she will not abide 
this commandment, she shall be destroyed, saith the 
Lord. . . Nevertheless, Emma refused to abide, 
for she knew “her husband’s nature too well to believe 
in the divine origin of the system”; she therefore 
threatened to get another husband in retaliation; but 
she threatened in vain, and was obliged to live in the 
knowledge that the Prophet was “practicing his new 
religious duties” with other women. One is not sur¬ 
prised to learn that, when she heard of his violent 
death, she “appeared remarkably resigned. She after¬ 
wards married a Gentile, and disavowed Mormonism.” 
Nor is one surprised to learn that she burnt the original 
revelation; that Young kept the copy for years care¬ 
fully locked up in his private desk, on which he put a 
patent lock; and that he once heatedly observed that 
Emma was “a liar, yes, the damnedest liar that lived,” 
and added that she had tried to poison the Prophet. 




BRIGHAM YOUNG_165 

' Young himself admitted that he was a doubter, and 
that he suffered much anguish of spirit, when the 
Prophet had revealed the new teaching. “It was the 
first time in my life,” he lamented, “that I desired the 
grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. 

. . . And I have had to examine myself from that day 
to this, and watch my faith and carefully meditate, lest 
I should Be found desiring the grave more than I ought 
to.” By August, 1852, his meditations had proved to 
be so successful that he had consummated marriages 
with over twenty women, six of whom were widows of 
the Prophet; and in the same month he publicly read 
the revelation, for by this time he had come to realize 
that it was none of his business. “ ’Twas the 
Lord’s concern. He had revealed the order of celes¬ 
tial marriage to Joseph. That was the end of all 
controversy.” 

Moreover, according to Young, each member of the 
Holy Trinity was strongly interested in the matter. 
“You think our Father and our God is not a lively, 
sociable, and cheerful man,” he once stated. “He is 
one of the most lively men that ever lived!” God, in 
fact, was merely a glorified and polygamous Adam, 
as Young proclaimed in a sermon: “When our father 
Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it 
with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his 
wives, with him. . . . He is our FATHER and our 
GOD, and the only God with whom we have to do.” 
In another sermon, he declared that “Jesus Christ 
was a practical polygamist; Mary and Martha, the 
sisters of Lazarus, were his plural wives, and Mary 
Magdalene was another.” In still another sermon, 





t 


166 STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


he announced his reason for believing that the baptism 
of Mormon women by the Holy Ghost would be highly 
inexpedient. “If the Son was begotten by the Holy 
Ghost, it would be very dangerous to baptize and con¬ 
firm the females and give the Holy Ghost to them, lest 
he should beget children, to be palmed upon the Elders 
by the people, bringing the Elders into great diffi¬ 
culties.” Furthermore, Young was convinced, both 
by experience and observation, that incontinence among 
men was general; he was familiar with the teaching of 
the Apostle Paul concerning incontinence; he noted 
that the shrewd Apostle, in stating that it was better 
to marry than to burn, had not necessarily insisted 
upon monogamy. It was thus evident that heaven 
looked with entire favor upon the new doctrine; that 
it would even cast into outer darkness those who re¬ 
fused to bear the cross of polygamy. The pathway 
to salvation was clear; virgins—over-ripe, perhaps, 
but nevertheless indubitable virgins—were waiting, 
numerous and unafraid; and Brigham Young expected 
every man to do his duty. 

His expectations were realized. In case any married 
men were timid or lacking in desire, he would cheer 
them up by saying that all Mormons “were boys under 
a hundred years of age,” and would then urge them 
to “live up to their privileges.” Inasmuch as any un¬ 
married woman had the right to demand a man for 
matrimonial uses “on the ground of the privilege of 
salvation” (although it was rumored that some maiden 
ladies needed no spiritual persuasions whatever), the 
President had the authority to compel some man to 
marry the woman—if the man refused, he was re- 





BRIGHAM YOUNG 


167 


quired to show “just cause.” But the men rarely ob¬ 
jected; and Mormon wives soon learnt that their hus¬ 
bands, when about to take other wives, showed never- 
failing symptoms. They would awake suddenly to a 
sense of their duties; they would have serious misgiv¬ 
ings as to whether the Lord would pardon them if 
they neglected to live up to their privileges; they 
would be frequently absent from home, attending (so 
they would say) religious meetings. In accordance 
with time-honored precedent, the men of money and 
power were naturally most successful in winning the 
pick of the flock, both in quality and in quantity. One 
Elder, indeed, was held up to emulation because of 
his “forty-two, more or less” wives; another Elder 
was pitied and called an “old bachelor” because he 
had secured only a mere baker’s dozen. Even married 
women were stricken with the prevalent fever, for 
“some women, distrusting the title of their spouses 
to enter [heaven] at all, have been desirous to take 
hold of the skirt of an apostle or high-priest of superior 
credentials. . . When women objected to the 
presence of other wives in their houses, Brigham told 
them that “they had no business to complain; it was 
quite enough honor for them to be permitted to bear 
children to God’s holy Priesthood.” The intimacies 
of family life in much-married households caused some 
very perplexing problems to arise; and one wife was 
everywhere praised on account of the ease with which 
she solved one particular difficulty. “When my hus¬ 
band intends going to Sarah’s apartment,” she ex¬ 
plained, “we first kneel down and have prayers; then 
he takes me in his arms and blesses me, and after our 




168 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


usual good-night kiss we part, happy in each other’s 
love; and why should there be any trouble?” 

Nevertheless, there was trouble. It is true that, 
once the new doctrine was in vogue, there was little 
conventional immorality; the Mormon claim that 
polygamy saved women from prostitution was cer¬ 
tainly valid, and the institution of Christian bordelloes 
was, from any point of view, wholly unnecessary. But 
in the matter of divorce Utah was as orthodox as the 
average Christian community. According to the reve¬ 
lation, people were “married” merely for time, but 
were “sealed” for eternity. The “sealing,” therefore, 
was by far the more important ceremony, and was per¬ 
formed in strict secrecy, to the accompaniment of many 
oaths, cabalistic mutterings, and (if apostates can be 
believed) aphrodisiacal and voodooistic rituals. All 
sorts of complications arose; if, for example, a wife 
disliked her husband and petitioned to be sealed to a 
more desirable man, the church would seal her to 
him—a marriage “actual in every sense.” Hence there 
were constant requests for divorces; and they were 
made just as easy to obtain as marriage certificates. 
Young alone had the sole authority to grant divorces, 
which he readily did—for a consideration. He 
charged ten dollars for divorcing those who were mar¬ 
ried only for time, and fifty dollars for divorcing those 
who were married for eternity. Once, in the course 
of a Tabernacle sermon, he remarked that the money 
earned in this way “came in very conveniently as pin- 
money for his wives”—for he had now come to be “a 
firm believer in the doctrine, and, as in other matters, 
showed his faith by his works.” Not the least of the 





BRIGHAM YOUNG 


169 


troubles of polygamy came from the multitudes of 
children; for the little spirits hovering around the earth, * 
and at the doors of bad houses, now had unusual 
opportunities to get into their tabernacles of clay, and 
they began to appear in droves. Within a few years, 
it was almost impossible to supply the demand for 
baby-carriages and midwives; but Young met the sit¬ 
uation handily. He compelled one of the ancients in 
his harem—who, as he said, had “had her day”—to 
learn midwifery so that she might minister to his 
other wives during their accouchements; and the poor 
woman almost always had her hands full. But the 
children were harder to manage; it was impossible to 
care for them at home, and they ran wild in the streets, 
until, according to a fairly reliable authority of the 
time, “every visitor proclaims them to be the most 
whisky-loving, tobacco-chewing, saucy and precocious 
children he ever saw.” 

And there were plenty of other troubles for Young 
to face, besides those arising from polygamy. Among 
his motley collection of followers, there were naturally 
some who found it rather difficult to abide steadfastly 
in the fullness of faith. Not long after Smith’s death, 
Young had found It necessary to remark: “Elders 
who go to borrowing horses or money, and running 
away with it, will be cut off from the church without 
any ceremony. They will not have as much lenity as 
heretofore.” But it seems that the chaste refinement 
and scrupulous purity of Young’s diction, both in public 
and private, fell upon dull and unresponsive ears, for 
in 1852 he said: “You Elders of Israel will go into 
the canons and curse and swear—damn and curse your 




STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


170 

oxen, and swear by Him who created you. I am tell¬ 
ing the truth. Yes, you rip and curse and swear as 
bad as any pirates ever did.” Yet his protestations 
were vain; and eventually, since attempts at compro¬ 
mise had failed, he wisely turned tail completely and 
gloried openly in the peccadilloes of his compatriots. 
“I have many a time,” he said in a sermon in 1856, 
“dared the world to produce as mean devils as we 
can—we can beat them at anything. We have the 
greatest and smoothest liars in the world, the cunning- 
est and most adroit thieves, and any other shade of 
character that you can mention. We can pick out 
Elders in Israel right here who can beat the world at 
gambling; who can handle the cards; can cut and shuffle 
them with the smartest rogue on the face of God’s 
footstool. . . . We can beat them because we have 
men here that live in the light of the Lord ” And all 
the swearers, horse-thieves, mean devils, liars and 
te amblers in the congregation smiled complacently, and 
continued to live in the light of the Lord. 

By 1855 Young was “king, priest, lawgiver and 
chief polygamist” in Utah; but still his difficulties were 
not ended. Apostasy, an ever present snake in the 
grass of fair Mormon meadows, still reared its ugly 
head. Thus far it had been merely scotched, not 
killed; its head had frequently been bruised, but its 
tail still wiggled maliciously. Young, however, was 
fully determined that its head should be cut off. He 
began his attack by darkly hinting that some vague 
but terrible punishment impended over the faithless. 
In 1855 he said in the Tabernacle: “If a man rebels, 
I will tell him of it, and if he resents a timely warning, 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


171 

he is unwise ... I have never yet shed man’s blood, 
and I pray God that I never may, unless it is actually 
necessary.” A year later: “Are you for God? . . . 
if you are not heartily on the Lord’s side, you will be 
hewn down.” “There are sins that men commit,” he 
explained, “for which they cannot receive forgiveness 
in this world nor in that which is to come; and, if they 
had their eyes open to see their true condition, they 
would be perfectly willing to have their blood spilt 
upon the ground, that the smoke thereof might ascend 
to heaven for their sins. . . .” To illustrate what 
Christ meant by loving our neighbors as ourselves, he 
said: “Will you love your brother and sister likewise 
when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned 
for without the shedding of blood? Will you love that 
man or woman well enough to shed their blood? That 
is what Jesus Christ meant. . . .” Finally, he spoke 
without a touch of vagueness: “Rather than apostates 
shall flourish here, I will unsheathe my bowie-knife, 
and conquer or die. . . . Such a man should be cut off 
just below the ears.” 

At length, when a “Reformation”—a movement of 
secession—started, Mormon love for fellow-sinners 
seems to have waxed very strong. The effusions of 
self-confessed murderers, who turned State’s evidence 
in order to secure personal immunity, or in the hope 
of securing such immunity, must, however, be taken 
with a great deal of caution. In particular, one of 
Young’s “Destroying Angels,” the notorious Bill Hick¬ 
man, showed so much apparent satisfaction in stating 
that he had “socked away” a certain apostate in obedi¬ 
ence to Young’s express command, that one suspects 




172 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


he may very probably have indulged in slaughter with¬ 
out any inducement save the sheer fun it gave him. 
Devout despisers of Mormons have been only too 
ready to believe, on very circumstantial evidence, that 
the famous “Mountain Meadows Massacre,” in which 
some one hundred and forty Christian emigrants were 
butchered, was inspired by Brigham Young; at all 
events, it is certain that his pulpit teachings justified the 
killing of both Christians and apostates; it is certain, 
moreover, that excessive indulgence in abnormal psy¬ 
chic and sexual practices often ends in a sadistic mania. 
His teachings, furthermore, might well have justified 
another practice of which jealous and decrepit Elders 
were frequently accused: the practice of emasculating 
lusty youths who desired to marry handsome young 
women whom the Elders wished to add to their own 
menageries. In one case of this sort, after the opera¬ 
tion had been savagely performed with a bowie-knife, 
it was stated that the young lady in the affair yielded 
graciously to the hoary Elder’s wishes “when she knew 
that her lover was no longer a man ” 

But the chief thorn that rankled in Young’s flesh 
was the United States’ Government itself. In 1850 
President Fillmore had appointed Young Governor of 
the territory of Utah; absolute religious and civil 
authority was now his; and before long certain Gentile 
officials whom Fillmore had designated to serve under 
him were treated with a discourtesy that soon grew 
into active hostility. By 1856 President Buchanan 
was moved to state, in his first message to congress, 
that “there no longer remained any government in 
Utah but the despotism of Brigham Young.” In the 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


i73 


following year it was officially declared that the civil 
government of Utah was in a state of rebellion; a 
federal Governor was appointed, and a force of 
United States troops was sent to occupy Mormon terri¬ 
tory. At this juncture Young showed of what metal 
he was made. He would, he declared, “ask no odds 
of Uncle Sam or the devil”; he issued an injunction 
forbidding “all armed forces of every description from 
coming into the Territory,” and declared martial law; 
he warned the advancing army of “blacklegs, black¬ 
hearted scoundrels, whoremasters, and murderers” 
that, if it came on, it would “find Utah a desert, every 
house will be burnt to the ground, every tree cut down, 
and every field laid waste.” And he meant precisely 
what he said; for to have permitted a federal Governor 
and federal forces to assume control of the territory 
would have meant an end to Young’s rule. Events 
favored him, for Civil War was threatening and the 
government, fearing that all its troops would soon be 
needed in an immeasurably greater struggle, drew in 
its horns and surrendered to one man. It covered the 
defeat, however, by making a show of reluctance in 
withdrawing the troops, and by offering a presidential 
“pardon” to the rebellious Mormons. When the fed¬ 
eral Governor assured Young that he would “hold 
sacred the amnesty and pardon by the President of 
the United States, by God, sir, yes,” Young sneered 
in his face and replied, “We know all about it, Gov¬ 
ernor.” It was not strange that Young remarked, “all 
hell cannot overthrow us, even with the United States 
troops to help them”; nor was it strange that, when 
the question concerning Mormon participation in the 





174 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Civil War arose, he publicly boasted: “Let the present 
administration ask us for a thousand men, or even five 
hundred, and I’d see them damned first, and then they 
could not have them.” A “Theo-Democracy” that 
had gloried in secession, and had utilized involuntary 
negro labor as a matter of custom, holding that the 
“negro is cursed as to the priesthood, and must always 
be a servant wherever his lot is cast . . could not 
be expected to have much interest in the preservation 
of the Union. And so, in spite of federal troops and 
a federal Governor, Young continued to be the real 
Governor of Utah. Washington itself had capitulated 
to the crook of his little finger; there was, as some 
one remarked, “no longer Mormonism; there was only 
Brighamism.” 

Ill 

As the years crept by, Young’s difficulties diminished 
and the plenitude of his power increased. Under his 
leadership Mormonism, whose origins were so close 
to the burlesque that its neophytes had been openly 
scoffed and derided, had grown into such a powerful 
organization that it was admittedly feared and bitterly 
hated by the whole nation. He had been tested in 
every way and had not been found wanting; individ¬ 
uals and governments had yielded equally to his might; 
in the end the “Old Boss” so dazzled the minds of his 
subjects that he became indistinguishable from God. 
In the early days he had shared in their labors and en¬ 
dured all the privations of toil and penury; now he 
lived at ease in what was virtually a palace. Dwelling 
thus like a medieval baron with his serfs around him, 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


175 


and preaching a faith that was even more archaic, 
he was nevertheless a modernist of the moderns in his 
quick appreciation of the benefits that would accrue 
to him from the utilization of progressive scientific 
inventions—the transcontinental railway, the express 
company, the telegraph—the thousand and one bless¬ 
ings of modern civilization. In this field alone, he 
worked hand in hand with the accursed Gentiles; and 
both he and the Gentiles profited exceedingly thereby. 
He even condescended so far as to entertain certain 
distinguished non-Mormon guests: Horace Greeley 
found him, in i860, appearing “to enjoy life, and 
to be in no particular hurry to get to heaven”; and 
Richard Burton discovered that a conversation with 
him was almost as hilarious an experience as the abso¬ 
lutely literal translation of the “Arabian Nights.” 

With ever increasing fervor, Young still continued 
to preach the gospel according to Joseph. Every Sun¬ 
day, from the pulpit in the Tabernacle, his sermons 
rained down upon a huge sea of faces. First, a band 
would play some lively music; a clerk would read the 
necessary announcements; and then every sound ceased 
as the Lion of the Lord strode to the platform. His 
preparations for speaking were deliberate; he would 
expectorate into a concealed spittoon, take a few sips 
of water, and launch forth. The strong, sonorous, 
voice carried his fluently impromptu remarks, with 
their incorrect colloquialisms and picturesque phrase¬ 
ology, to the farthest corner of the holy building; the 
gestures were easy and seldom violent; the frequent 
mimicry of some unfortunate Mormon aroused bursts 
of appreciative laughter. Every eye was fastened on 




STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


116 

him; rarely did a single glance wander from the stately 
figure, now tending to portliness. Those nearest the 
pulpit would gaze fondly upon the beloved counte¬ 
nance, and note every detail: the wavy, light-colored 
hair, barely streaked with gray, the steely-blue eyes 
and the slight droop of the left eyelid, the large, mildly 
hooked nose that bent a little to the left, the broad 
but thin lips, the imperfect teeth in the lower jaw, and 
the fringe of decidedly prophet-like whiskers that en¬ 
circled the lower part of the chin and the cheeks. A 
few unsympathetic women might think that the face 
was cold, placid and bloodless, that there was a sinister 
glitter in the slanting eyes, and that perhaps he “would 
have been good-looking had he looked pleasant”; but 
they were in the minority. 

As his years increased, so did his wives and children; 
for he had come to be “an indefatigable disciple of the 
Celestial Marriage system.” Even as early as i860, 
he could say to Greeley: “I have fifteen [wives]; I 
know no one who has more. But some . . . are old 
ladies whom I regard rather as mothers than 
wives. . . .” Eventually, one of his moderately young 
mothers caused him a great deal of trouble. In 1873 
Ann Eliza Young, “Wife No. 19,” sued him for 
divorce. The suit dragged on until 1877, when it was 
decreed that the polygamous marriage was void, and 
the costs of the case were charged to Young. In the 
intervening years, Ann Eliza, who, as she herself re¬ 
marked, was “prepossessing in appearance” and a 
“perfect Griselda” in patience, had become a Metho¬ 
dist and therefore, inevitably, a staunch lecturer against 
Mormonism. She was even bold enough to speak in 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


177 


the theater that Young had built so that the Mormons 
could have “holy fun”, but she had cost him a pretty 
penny, and (if her word is to be believed) he proceeded 
to get his revenge by commanding a number of his 
daughters to attend her exhibition, sit in the front 
row, and make faces at her. 

Two elegant houses, the “Lion House” and the 
“Bee-Hive,” sheltered most of the modern Solomon’s 
brood, although some who had had their day were 
boarded out at their own expense. It is gratifying to 
learn that each of the wives had a separate sleeping 
apartment, “except . . . discarded ones who slept by 
twos.” He kept no servants—and why should he have 
kept any when the two houses were full of women? 
His favorite wife, whoever she happened to be, lived 
in ease and luxury. Amelia, the favorite of favorites, 
was allowed special privileges: she called him 
“Briggy”; often, in the evening, she would sit in his 
lap, lovingly pinch his cheeks, curl his hair, and fix it 
up with papers and hairpins; meanwhile the Lion of 
the Lord purred with pleasure and stroked her gently 
with his amorous paws. 

But those who were not in favor had to do all the 
cooking, spinning, knitting and quilting, and in general 
all the duties of the huge households. Naturally, there 
were bickerings among them; finally, conditions be¬ 
came so bad that Young felt called upon to rebuke his 
wives publicly from the pulpit: “my wives have got to 
do one of two things; either round up their shoulders 
to endure the afflictions of this world, and live their 
religion, or they may leave, for I will not have them 
about me. I will go into heaven alone, rather than 





STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


178 

have scratching and fighting all around me. . . . Sis¬ 
ters, I am not joking.” At mealtimes the whole family 
gathered in one large hall; but “Briggy” and his fa¬ 
vorite sat at a small table at the head of the dining¬ 
room, while the others, with their children clustering 
around them, completely filled both sides of two long 
tables running lengthwise. Here, after saying an in¬ 
clusive grace, he dined at ease, with one eye on his 
favorite and the other sweeping from one head to 
another. His admirers affirm that he was ascetic in his 
tastes—that his chief food was baked potatoes, butter¬ 
milk and water—but certain disgruntled ones tell a 
different story. He is pictured as having said: “Cut 
me a chunk off the breast of the turkey, and a piece of 
the loin of one of the fat kids, and put some rich gravy 
over it”; and “Wife No. 19” claims that his own little 
table habitually groaned under a weight of delicacies, 
while the two family tables were very frugal in appear¬ 
ance. Once, we are told, a certain luckless mother 
arose and stalked boldly to his table, whence she stole 
a few choice morsels; and the Lion was so surprised 
at her effrontery that he could only glare in speechless 
amazement. No one knows precisely what followed; 
but it was noted that the daring woman appeared very 
crestfallen for several days, and that she never re¬ 
peated the grave offense. 

Young’s daily life in his old age was simple and 
orderly. He rose a little past seven, and was usually 
at his office by nine; he then worked with his secretary 
for an hour, and was ready for his barber by ten— 
no visitor, however important, was ever allowed to 
interfere with the barber’s task. The rest of the 




BRIGHAM YOUNG 


179 

day was devoted largely to callers, who came in tre¬ 
mendous numbers. At seven in the evening the bell 
rang for family prayers, and all the wives and children 
came trooping in. Young sat in the center of the 
room, read a few selections from the Bible, and then 
led in prayer; the women, ranged around the entire 
room, knelt in perfect silence, while, behind most of 
the seventeen-odd skirts, from two to five cherubic 
faces peeped out apprehensively at their common 
father. That was the last time that his wives saw him 
for the day, “unless they had occasion to seek him 
privately.’’ 

At last, in 1877, Young’s previously ardent desire 
for the grave was granted. His will, of course, had 
already been made; and it showed that “Honest Brig¬ 
ham Young,” who during the first fifty years of his 
life had worked like a common laborer for his daily 
bread, had acquired an estate worth nearly $3,000,000. 
The communistic principle upon which Mormonism 
was founded had apparently offered no obstacle to 
Young: he owned many city blocks, farms, grist and 
saw mills; the territorial legislature had made con¬ 
tinual grants of property to him; no one except him¬ 
self knew what became of the tithes that every Mor¬ 
mon had to pay into the church treasury—he never 
rendered an account of the money thus received. Per¬ 
haps it was not without reason that, over the desk in 
his private office, a pistol and rifle habitually hung 
within ready reach, and that armed guards were sta¬ 
tioned close at hand. 

On August 23, having eaten a hearty dinner of 
green corn and peaches, he was attacked by cholera 





i8o 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


morbus and for five days grew steadily worse. Various 
brethren laid their hands on him in the hope of effect¬ 
ing a cure, but, strangely enough, without any result; 
and finally, at his own request, opium was administered. 
His last words, spoken in a semi-stupor, were, “I feel 
better.” At 4 p. M., on the twenty-ninth, with “no 
tremor, no contortion,” he died. 

The funeral, held four days later, was magnificently 
attended; all of his seventeen surviving wives, “not 
including Ann Eliza,” his sixteen sons and his twenty- 
eight daughters, “with few exceptions,” were present, 
together with thousands of mourning admirers. De¬ 
cidedly the most noteworthy feature of the occasion 
was the reading of Young’s own painstaking directions 
concerning his burial—a remarkable document, which 
he had drawn up with great care in 1873: “When I 
breathe my last, I wish my friends to put my body 
in as clean and wholesome a state as can conveniently 
be done. ... I want my coffin made of plain one-and- 
a-quarter redwood boards, not scrimped in length, but 
two inches longer than I would measure, and from 
two to three inches wider than is commonly made for 
a person of my breadth and size, and deep enough to 
place me on a little comfortable cotton bed, with a 
good suitable pillow in size and quality; my body 
dressed in my Temple clothing and laid nicely into my 
coffin, and the coffin to have the appearance that if I 
wanted to turn a little to the right or to the left I 
should have plenty of room to do so”, and the coffin 
was to be covered with “as fine dry earth as can be 
had.” 

Why, one wonders, all this solicitude for bedroom 






BRIGHAM YOUNG 


181 


comforts in the grave? Does it argue an instinctive 
desire on his part to frustrate the corruption of mor¬ 
tality—or, perhaps, a doubt as to the resurrection of 
the body—perhaps even a definite hope that he would 
not rise at all, and would therefore elude the spiritual 
embraces of many who fondly expected to meet him 
within the golden gate? Doubtless there was method 
in this seeming madness; for it was known that, at 
the time of his death, he was “sealed on the spiritual 
wife system to more women than anyone can count; 
all over Mormondom are pious old widows, or wives 
of Gentiles and apostates, who hope to rise at the 
last day and claim a celestial share in Brigham.” 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Anderson, E. H., The Life of Brigham Young. Salt Lake 
City, 1893. 

Burton, Richard, The City of the Saints. London, 1862. 
Deseret News. 

Greeley, Horace, An Overland Journey. New York, i860. 
Gunnison, Lieut. J. W., The History of the Mormons. 
Philadelphia, 1852. 

Hickman, “Bill,” Brigham's Destroying Angel. New York, 
1872. 

Hyde, John, Mormonism. New York, 1857. 

Kennedy, J. H., Early Days of Mormonism. Chas. Scribner’s 
Sons, New York, 1888. 

King, Murray E., Utah: Apocalypse of the Desert. New 
York Nation , June 28, 1922. 

Lee, John D., Mormonism Unveiled. St. Louis, 1891. 




182 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Linn, Wm. A., The Story of the Mormons. Macmillan Co., 
New York, 1902. 

Millennial Star. 

Riley, I. Woodbridge, The Founder of Mormonism. Dodd, 
Mead & Co., New York, 1902. 

Schroeder, Theodore (and others), Pamphlets. 

Stenhouse, Mrs. T. B. H., Tell It All. Hartford, 1874. 
Times and Seasons. 

Tullidge, E. W., Life of Brigham Young. New York, 1876. 
Young, Ann Eliza, Wife No. ig. Hartford, 1875. 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


I 

Precisely seven years after the death of Frances E. 
Willard, her carven image was unveiled in Statuary 
Hall, Washington. On that day—it was February 17, 
1905—^e nation’s capital was the scene of an un¬ 
precedented episode; the city had not been “so crowded 
since the funeral of President McKinley as it was 
today,” runs a contemporary account. It was not, 
then, the crowd itself that was without precedent; it 
was its composition. For it was made up of women— 
women who represented the most widely-diversified 
types, who had come flocking from every direction to 
the national capital, and who all vibrated with the 
same emotional urge: admiration for the winsome 
little woman who had been immortalized with as much 
of immortality as stone is able to confer. 

The ladies thus assembled for a peaceful and laud¬ 
atory purpose interrupted, thoughtlessly but none the 
less effectually, the commonly placid and uneventful 
course of many a Senator and Congressman. Those 
unfortunate gentlemen, who were busily devoting them¬ 
selves to the work of serving their nation with that 
complete self-abnegation and pure disinterestedness 
of purpose, to which, as they have so frequently as¬ 
sured their constituents, all their energies are zealously 

consecrated, looked with amazement and perturbation 

183 


184 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


of spirit upon strange hordes of enthusiastic females 
who eddied and swirled through the solemn govern¬ 
mental halls, prying into nooks and byways hitherto 
inviolably masculine. At length, overwhelmed by sheer 
weight of numbers and galvanized into precipitate ac¬ 
tion by the instinct of self-preservation, the hapless 
males shook off the numbing horror that had held 
them tranced and, like guilty culprits, fled for safety 
to the only masculine shrine that offered absolute pro¬ 
tection. Eventually, with equanimity at least partially 
restored, they ventured forth with some trepidation 
to listen to one of their number who was to make the 
unveiling speech. The honorable dignitary who per¬ 
formed this task began by saying, “Mr. President: 
From the beginning woman has personified the world’s 
ideals.” This sentiment found complete favor among 
his audience; at any rate, no rude and disconcerting 
person interrupted to inquire whether, for instance, 
Cleopatra, Messalina, Lucrezia Borgia and Nell 
Gwyn were included in this rather sweeping generali¬ 
zation; and the orator was therefore emboldened to 
proceed with his entire speech just as it had previously 
been written, and which in no way belied the opening 
sentence. At its conclusion, accordingly, everyone felt 
that the affair, despite its tempestuous beginning, had 
been entirely satisfactory; both the Senate and the 
House adjourned until the next day in honor of the un¬ 
usual occasion; and the female battalions shortly dis¬ 
persed and returned, complacent and serene, to their 
respective homes. 

One statement made by the master of ceremonies 
on that noteworthy day had particularly pleased them: 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


= 

“the character of Frances E. Willard is womanhood’s 
apotheosis,” he had declared. The phrase might per¬ 
haps be a little vague. Did it mean that she had been 
deified because of her striking personality, her excep¬ 
tional accomplishments, her world-sweeping vision of 
humanitarianism, her mastery over thousands of au¬ 
diences, her tireless and terrific energy, her bitter denun¬ 
ciations of evil; or was it because of something nearer 
and warmer: her dislike of grandiose display, her 
sweet nature, her fragility of form and face, her touch¬ 
ing little ways—in brief, because of her femininity? 
For human nature is always complex, always, in greater 
or less degree, self-contradictory and inconsistent; 
and the portion of human nature that composed the 
personality of Frances E. Willard was not simple. Its 
totality, to be sure, was simple enough in the popular 
imagination of her day: she seemed to be the personi¬ 
fication of consummate feminine excellence in thought, 
purpose and performance—a trinity of exquisite per¬ 
fections fused into one radiant personality. So she 
was at most times; and yet—there are times . . . and 
times. After all, she was a woman; and women are 
human beings; and human beings are—human; that is 
to say, they are frail. Womanhood’s apotheosis she 
may have been; but even the gods themselves seem at 
times to be almost human. The process of deifying 
uncommon mortals usually effects a curious and unsatis¬ 
fying result: the distinctly human part, the interesting 
part, of the deified being is lost and a cold, repellent 
monstrosity takes its place—an embodiment of im¬ 
maculate and frigid faultlessness, without the warmth 
and charm of frailty. 





186 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Thus, in the popular mind of today, Miss Willard 
lives: a lifeless impersonation of ultimate feminine 
virtues, a female without flaw, a mere voice crying in 
the wilderness of nineteenth century intemperance and 
woman’s subjection to man. The people who have 
written about her were, one might almost say, her 
worst enemies. Perceiving the necessity of humanizing 
the austere portrait which a persistently idealizing 
humanity had imaginatively depicted after her death, 
they touched up the simulacrum; but the touches were 
forced and feeble. They damned her with fervent 
praise. An air of restraint surrounds nearly all of 
these presumably biographical documents: they dwell 
on her rather commonplace idiosyncrasies, her daily 
routine, her harmless peccadilloes. Occasionally, and 
in an abashed and half-ashamed manner, they permit 
the reader to peek through the keyhole that locked 
the door behind which the genuinely vital woman 
lived; but they permit this, never for the woman’s sake, 
but always for instruction, for the “lesson” of her 
life. A lesson—indeed, many lessons—may be learnt 
from her life; but they should be learnt from her life, 
and not from the devitalized creature of spotless and 
finished goodness wUch biography has commonly made 
of her. In truth, the only writer who approached 
the subject with an open mind confessed that she was 
almost completely won over before her researches were 
completed. More than that, Miss Willard’s autobiog¬ 
raphy, with its journalistic ramblings, its potpourri 
of dates, speeches, homely touches and moralizing pre¬ 
cepts, was written for the same purpose for which she 
lived—to do good. She was an example, she knew it, 






_ FRANCES E. WILLARD _187 

and she proposed that others should know it too. Her 
journal, in its entirety, might tell many unsuspected 
tales- -certainly, some fragments quoted by herself or 
others make one greedy for more—but upon that 
document, in its unexpurgated completeness, it may 
properly be presumed that no devastating masculine 
eye will ever dwell. But it was dangerous for her to 
write at all. How often—and how luckily!—did the 
ink from her morality-dripping pen unconsciously be¬ 
tray her non-moral, her natural self! Yet the casual 
woman reader seeking for spiritual enlightenment and 
strength, or the minister looking for easily acquired 
facts about intemperance to inflict upon a congregation 
already thoroughly convinced of the necessity for tem¬ 
perance in at least one particular (for these two types 
include nearly all who have turned the pages of her 
books), has put the books aside with nothing gained 
except a sense of that calm self-satisfaction that comes 
to many mortals from the vicarious experience of liv¬ 
ing over in their own lives the most striking episodes 
in the careers of distinguished beings. 

Her life has interest for today, as it had interest 
for yesterday, mainly because of two reasons: her 
career epitomizes, to a remarkable degree, one of the 
most interesting developments in a century character¬ 
ized by an unprecedented diversity of developments— 
the definite entrance of woman into the field of politi¬ 
cal and moral reform; in addition, she was a woman 
who led an unusually rich and varied existence, and she 
is therefore interesting for her own sake. “I have 
looked back upon the seven persons whom I know most 
about,” she wrote in her autobiography, “the welcome 






18 8 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


child, the romping girl, the happy student, the roving 
teacher, the tireless traveler, the temperance organizer, 
and lastly, the politician and advocate of woman’s 
rights!” But her personality was even more multi¬ 
farious than she indicated; and the contemplative 
reader may note, as he follows the sinuosities of her 
development, how an irrepressible eighth person fre¬ 
quently pops up, makes its bow, and cuts a few mis¬ 
chievous pranks before settling back into the seclusion 
of the land of shadows. 


II 

She was truly a welcome child. A little sister who 
preceded her had but lately died, and the bereaved 
mother often prayed during the months before the 
birth of Frances that the unborn babe might be a 
girl. “Is it a little girl?” was her first question after 
her travail was over, on September 28, 1839, in 
Churchville, New York. A little brother was very 
happy too; but he so feared that this new sister would 
die as the other had done that every morning, without 
waiting to dress, he would come tumbling into the 
room crying out, “Ma, is the baby dead?” And, upon 
learning that it was very much alive, he would still 
ask, “Ma, is the baby well?” 

It was natural that the parents should have intended 
at first to christen the newcomer Victoria, for the 
young queen had but recently come to the throne and 
every newspaper was acclaiming her virtues; but even¬ 
tually, since it was a family name, and also, as the 
father said, a “fancy” appellation, the tiny creature 






Frances E. Willard 

































FRANCES E. WILLARD 


189 


was named Frances. As soon as the little tot had 
grown out of that stage of red-faced immobility which 
attends the early period of babyhood, it was remarked 
that she had blue eyes, delicate features, and a fair 
complexion, all of which attributes were very good; 
her waist, however, was rather long and her legs were 
rather short. Following the first four weeks, she was 
a “bottle baby,” for her mother was not strong; but 
when she was ten months old she did something that, 
despite early lapses, symbolized her whole career— 
she pushed the bottle away and never touched it again. 
Another curiously symbolic trait soon appeared: she 
learnt to talk before she could walk—for the strength 
of her lungs was remarkable, even for a baby. “I de¬ 
clare,” her father would say, as night after night he 
paced the floor with the howling infant whose screams 
resounded throughout the whole house, “this young 
one ought to amount to something, she gives trouble 
enough!” Then he would do his best to soothe her 
shrieks by heating some milk and feeding it to her 
through a soft rubber nipple, which was much nicer 
in every way than the hard chunk of ivory that was 
ordinarily kept in her mouth in order to facilitate the 
cutting of her teeth. Two other characteristics, which 
developed early and persisted through her life, were 
shown in the form of an abnormal sensitiveness to 
pain, and complete confidence in others—at least some 
others—for she suffered severely in teething, and al¬ 
ways slept with her hands on her mother’s face. 

When she was two years old, her parents moved to 
Oberlin, Ohio, where the romping stage began. And 
romp she did. She despised indoor games, and played 





190 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


out of doors with her brother and his playmates so 
much that she was called “Tomboy” and “Red head”; 
but, feminine from the first to the last, she resented 
these titles very keenly. Five years later, the family 
made a second hegira—this time to “Forest Home,” 
Wisconsin, where she lived, until she was nineteen, the 
simple life of a country girl. Dishcloths and needles 
she hated; but she “knew all the carpenter’s tools and 
handled them” in making all sorts of toys; she learnt 
to milk; she could harness a horse in three minutes; 
she made and set traps for quail; and she rode “horse¬ 
back” on a favorite heifer. So it happened that, when 
she was fifteen, “though in some things very acute, 
she had the crudeness of penmanship, pastime and 
manner that belong to childhood.” 

Her religious development, too, was rather slow. A 
tendency to doubt and to question, which fortunately 
troubled her but rarely in her mature years, bothered 
her at first; “little infidel,” her mother playfully called 
her. It seems that, at this time, even divine services 
did not affect her in the correct way: “[I] counted 150 
wasps on the ceiling in church,” she wrote at the age 
of sixteen. When the mother noted with pleasure that 
her daughter was reading the Bible, and complimented 
her upon it, she would toss her head and say, “I’m 
looking at the births and dates,” or “I’m only reading 
the Apocrypha”; but her reflections on the circum¬ 
stances that preceded and attended some of the births, 
and on the story of Susanna and the Elders, have not 
been recorded. Yet she was worried about the sensi¬ 
tiveness of conscience which Mary, her younger sister, 
habitually showed; even more was she concerned about 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


191 

her own appearance. Mary was plump and pretty; 
but Frank was lean, and her hair was thin and reddish 
still. “Aren’t you sorry to be so homely, Frank?” 
queried a girl of her own age, sixteen, following a slight 
acquaintance. At twenty-one she noted in her journal, 
“you are not beautiful, pretty, or even good-looking. 
There is the bald fact for you. . . . And yet . . . 
you are not disagreeable nor unpleasant.” Her per¬ 
sonal appearance continued to be a life-long source 
of anxiety, and her comments on others are concerned 
with their looks almost as rriuch as with their morals. 
“Saw picture of A. Lincoln,” she wrote in i860. “If 
he is truly as ugly as that he isn’t fit for President!” 

By degrees sensitiveness of conscience began to 
touch her. On her fifteenth birthday she wrote: “I’m 
a lazy girl. I’m a quick-tempered girl. I rub my 
eyes. I snort. I used to eat coal and the bark of 
trees. I’m fonder of anything out of my sphere than 
of anything in it.” But, after all, she was not always 
lazy, nor did she spend all of her time in rubbing her 
eyes and snorting, as a passage penned in her sixteenth 
year indicates: “I did usual work, brought in woodbox 
full of wood, did up my hair, etc., and finished my 
chemise. Let there be a Te Deum sung in honor of 
the occasion. I am very terribly glad , exceedingly, ex¬ 
cruciatingly glad.” What “etc.” included remains ob¬ 
scure; but, three years later, in looking this passage 
over she felt a pang of conscience at having indulged 
in such frivolities; and, grasping her every ready pen, 
she wrote on the margin, “What a record for a girl 
of sixteen to make!” Another, and earlier, experience 
had been even more painful. When she was a school- 





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girl of fourteen, an older girl had remarked to her at 
recess time: “You are the most ignorant girl I ever 
saw. . . . Come with me around the corner of the 
school-house where no one will hear, and I will tell 
you things that will make you open your eyes bigger 
than ever.” Frank naturally felt vexed at being called 
ignorant; and besides, her mother had put off certain 
inconvenient questions with the unsatisfactory promise, 
“Come to me when you are fifteen years old and I will 
tell you.” So she went around the corner; and as she 
listened to “illustrations and anecdotes, riddles, puns 
and jokes,” it was no wonder that “this strange vocabu¬ 
lary amazed and disconcerted” the poor child. Her 
amazement temporarily lulled her conscience, it seems, 
for she commented, “afterward I felt so sorry to have 
talked at all.” 

The romping girl vanished slowly, transmuted by 
imperceptible degrees into the happy student. But she 
was not happy all at once, for her sorrow was great 
when she was forced to abandon a free, out-of-door 
life and put on the dresses and airs of a lady. She 
had delighted in her short hair, her short skirts, and 
her cozy bonnet: “Mine was a nature hard to tame, 
and I cried long and loud when I found I could never 
race again and range about with freedom,” she la¬ 
mented in later years. “My ‘back’ hair,” she wrote 
in her advanced teens, “is twisted up like a corkscrew; 
I carry eighteen hair-pins; my head aches miserably; 
my feet are entangled in the skirt of my hateful new 
gown. I can never jump over a fence again, so long 
as I live.” During her whole life she continued to 
rail at women’s fashions, and envied the simplicity of 




193 


FRANCES E. WILLARD 


male attire. In following her career, one cannot 
escape the impression that, from this time on, her mind 
gradually became restricted and hobbled almost as 
painfully as her body was. Not often, after this, is 
there a flow of pure animal spirits; the lively and frolic¬ 
some girl steadily gives way to the moody, introspec¬ 
tive young woman; the wild creature of the plains van¬ 
ishes and a conventionally proper and precise young 
lady takes its place. Fortunately, however, there were 
occasional reversions to a more primitive state. 

In her formal education, too, the same vitiating 
process is apparent. Her first reading was done in 
stories of adventure, since the day of “books for girls” 
had not yet arrived. So she read “Don Quixote,” “Gil 
Bias,” and “Gulliver’s Travels,” in carefully expur¬ 
gated editions, no doubt; but improper romances had 
been banned by parental authority. One evening her 
father found her reading in feverish haste the pages 
of “Villette.” Snatching the impious volume from her 
hand, with flushed cheek and clouded brow he turned 
to the person who had loaned the book and said: 
“Never let my daughter see that book again, if you 
please, madam.” But, on her eighteenth birthday, 
the disobedient girl actually sinned again; she thought¬ 
lessly desecrated her mother’s rocking-chair as, curled 
snugly between its spacious arms, she lost herself in 
“Ivanhoe.” Once more the parental brow grew 
clouded and the admonitory voice spoke: “I thought I 
told you not to read novels, Frances.” “So you did, 
father . . . but you forget what day it is.” “I should 
like to know [the paternal tones grew stern] if the 
day has anything to do with the deed!” “Indeed it 





194 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


has,” came the unbelievable response, “I am eighteen— 
I am of age—I am now to do what / think right. . . 
The father was dumfounded—could this be his own 
sweet, obedient daughter? He was about to snatch the 
volume away, when an unusual expression on the 
daughter’s face warned him that—there might be con¬ 
sequences; so he merely laughed and covered his de¬ 
feat with the condescending and self-flattering remark 
that she was a “chip of the old block.” The future 
advocate of women’s rights had successfully passed 
through her first baptism of fire. 

In college the baptizing process went on, but adven¬ 
tures and romances yielded place to more serious mat¬ 
ters. At seventeen, with her sister Mary she entered 
Milwaukee Female College, where her greatest desire 
was to win perfection in “punctuality, behavior and 
lessons.” However, her father and mother were 
staunch Methodists, and, fearful lest the teachings 
of a Congregational school might have pernicious 
effects upon their children, the parents left “Forest 
Home” and went to Evanston, Illinois—for at that 
place there was still another Female College, a part 
of Northwestern University, where sound principles 
of Methodism were inculcated with the becoming rig¬ 
idity of inflexible orthodoxy. Before long, the girl 
who had been a rollicking tomboy, who had loved 
nature with a pagan love, and who had hated the 
social bonds and taboos which elegant and refined 
young seminary ladies commonly endure with pleasure, 
went through an almost complete metamorphosis. She 
became a “best student;” she was meticulously careful 
about her dress; and she was leader of the intellectual 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


195 


forces. Outside of the classrooms she seemed proud, 
independent and haughty; inside she was all animation. 
It was remarked that she associated strictly with girls; 
her teachers, indeed, observed with satisfaction that 
her influence did much to “counteract the tendency to 
silly escapades and moonlight walks with the ‘Univer¬ 
sity boys,’ ” which was so curiously prevalent among 
the other young ladies. She didn’t “care a snap for 
the boys,” her friends said; but as one notes how fre¬ 
quently she bemoans her personal plainness, one sus¬ 
pects that the sentiment may have been reciprocated. 
“I have known several men for whom I might have 
cared,” she confided to her journal when she was 
twenty-one, “I have looked after them as they passed 
me on the street, as I saw them in church or met them 
in society. ... It is not that I am hard-hearted or 
insensible, but because I know perfectly well these 
men think nothing about me except as an acquaint¬ 
ance. . . .” 

But, after all, what were boys in comparison with 
books? She became devoted to the jumble of edifying 
epigrams and metaphysical musings which she found in 
Emerson; she dwelt with particular joy upon this pas¬ 
sage from “Circles”: “Men cease to interest us, when 
we find their limitations.” Most of all, she became 
interested in Margaret Fulled Ossoli. “Here we see 
what a woman achieved for herself,” she reflected; but 
she did not realize that the supreme achievement of 
that pioneer feminist consisted in her discovery that 
at least one man, with all his many limitations, never 
ceased to interest her. This sort of browsing, more 
than her regular studies, undoubtedly affected and in- 




196 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


fluenced her vital self, yet she conscientiously per¬ 
formed all the intellectual calisthenics that were pre¬ 
scribed; but even her zealous ambition flagged when 
Butler’s “Analogy” was forced upon her, and she often 
showed rare good sense by going to sleep with her 
face drooping between its cabalistic pages. Eventually, 
her feeling of satisfaction was great when the high 
honor of the valedictory was conferred upon her in a 
class numbering two. 

And yet, as in later life she reviewed her collegiate 
experiences, she was not entirely satisfied . . . there 
had been slips. During the first year at Evanston, 
the father had sent each of his daughters a red worsted 
hood for winter wear. Now, red might go pretty well 
with Mary’s dark-brown hair; but “Red head” was 
still red-headed and red-tempered. She submitted to 
a good deal of unmerciful chaffing on the part of better 
dressed girls about the plain, homespun thing; but one 
day a tall, handsome creature from a socially promi¬ 
nent family flouted her beyond endurance. It was bad 
enough to be red-headed and plain; it was even worse 
to be compelled to wear a bonnet which accentuated 
these two undesirable attributes; and it was positively 
unendurable to be guyed about all three at once by a 
girl who was not only well-dressed but handsome. In 
a flash, Frank turned upon the spiteful girl and threw 
her between the benches, where she lay, a crumpled 
heap, with her beautiful face rubbing against the floor; 
then, her revenge complete, she stalked defiantly away, 
retying with trembling fingers the strings of her dis¬ 
located hood. After this, there was no more teasing— 
Frank had won her spurs and was ready to use them. 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


197 


Moreover, she soon had the offending hair shingled, 
“a rare delight, the continuance of which until this 
hour would have added incalculably to the charms of 
existence for me,” she recorded at the age of fifty. 
For a time she was an honored member of the “Ne’er- 
do-weels,” a band of girls who wickedly refused to 
go to prayer-meeting on Sunday evenings; she often 
clambered up the steeple of the college chapel during 
the holy hours when she was supposed to be studying, 
and contemplated herself and the surrounding land¬ 
scape with equanimity. Once she led the band of ill- 
doing girls into a room where a prayer-meeting was 
going on, with the intention of breaking it up; but a 
wise strategist thrust a Bible under her nose and asked 
her to lead in prayer. The versatile girl was equal to 
the occasion; she read a chapter, “commented upon it 
as wisely as I could,” and then said, “Let us pray.” 
All did so, except one harum-scarum girl, nicknamed 
Lineburger. Eyeing the blasphemous creature in her 
sternest and primmest manner, Frank said, “Line- 
burger, why don’t you kneel down, and behave?” 
Lineburger knelt and behaved, and “the devotions pro¬ 
ceeded with the utmost decorum.” But there was 
worse to come. She had read that rattling piratic tale, 
“Jack Sheppard,” and one evening, in utter disobe¬ 
dience to the precepts of Butler and the Bible, perhaps 
even in a spirit of willful and glorious abandon, the 
naughty child acted the part of a corsair in the privacy 
of a room inhabited by “the wildest girl in school.” 
The maiden who was to be the living symbol of femi¬ 
nine perfectibility, who was to be chosen by thousands 
of mothers as the best example for their own daughters 





198 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


to imitate, who in coming years held scores of au¬ 
diences spell-bound by her moral earnestness, her 
simple yet thrilling oratory, her savage onslaughts 
against the hosts of both venomous and venial mascu¬ 
line sins, might at this time have been observed emulat¬ 
ing the appearance and behavior of a slashing bucca¬ 
neer, as, armed with a wooden pistol and a bowie-knife, 
she pulled away at a cigar, used “as much of the lan¬ 
guage that such men would have used as we knew,” 
and took an occasional nip from a bottle of ginger-pop. 

\ 

III 

But such episodes were rare. Besides, another 
change was coming which was to make them rarer: 
genuine religious experience was imminent. The wild, 
care-free young bird had already lost many feathers 
from her pinions; she had submitted with steadily dim¬ 
inishing reluctance to the process of becoming a con¬ 
ventionally correct young lady; and now a power even 
stronger than convention was to clip away nearly all 
the feathers that still remained. 

Without doubt she was already more religious, in 
much the same proportion as she was less beautiful, 
than the average girl; a plain face combined with a 
chastened spirit illustrates, all too frequently, how an 
inexplicable Providence attempts to remedy its self* 
inflicted injustices through the non-compensating law 
of compensation. It happened that, just before grad¬ 
uation, she was stricken with typhoid fever, and her 
disappointment was bitter. More than that, death 
itself might come. At the crisis of the fever, she un- 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


199 


derwent a commonplace experience, although to her, 
as to all who have had the experience, it seemed unique. 
Two presences appeared to speak to her soul: one was 
“warm, sunny, safe, with an impression as of snowy 
wings; the other cold, dismal, dark, with the flutter 
of a bat.” One said, “My child, give me thy heart”; 
the other advised her to trust her reason. The sunny 
presence won, and cold reason was defeated; the dis¬ 
mal bat unfolded his dusky wings and fluttered back 
to the regions of eternal darkness. Raising her voice 
until its faint tones could be heard in the adjoining 
room, Frances called out: “Mother, I wish to tell you 
that if God lets me get well I’ll try to be a good Chris¬ 
tian girl.” 

Perhaps the vaguely remembered experience of 
Hezekiah, even more than a sunny* presence, was re¬ 
sponsible for those words. But—suppose God should 
not let her get well—what then? She seems not to 
have considered that possibility; and anyhow, since 
cold, dark reason was admittedly hors de combat, why 
should she have considered it? But cold, dark reason 
suggests the disturbing thought that the whole affair 
wears the appearance of an attempt on her part to 
drive a thrifty bargain with the Deity—to slip an ad¬ 
vance tip for a service to Te performed: a lease of 
physical existence granted in payment for a devoutly 
spiritual life. The girl who finally became such an 
effective political strategist had early learnt that in¬ 
valuable lesson—the necessity of compromise. 

Her prayer was answered. Doubtless because of 
the direct interference of Providence, she did get well, 
although cold medical reasoning and careful nursing 




200 


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may possibly have aided a little. But her spirit had 
not found its rest; something still seemed to be lacking. 
During revival services held the following winter in 
the local Methodist church, she knelt fourteen suc¬ 
cessive times at the altar, expecting a complete trans¬ 
formation, a direct revelation from on high, “some 
portion of heaven to be placed in my inmost heart.” 
But, strange to say, the portion was not granted, no 
matter how much she agonized in prayer. What could 
be the trouble? Ah! She had it! As she was bowed 
at her bed one night in anguish of spirit, a distinctly 
heaven-sent thought came to her: rebirth of soul had 
already taken place at the height of her fever when 
she had bartered with God. How simple it all was 
now! Nothing could possibly be more satisfactory. 
On the following.Sunday evening, at the close of the 
church service, something unusual happened. The re¬ 
vival wave of the preceding winter had, curiously 
enough, completely subsided, and the church was taking 
its religion in the correct way—comfortably, as a mat¬ 
ter of course, as a part of the week’s routine. And, 
as a part of the week’s routine, the pastor concluded 
with an invitation for sinners to come forward. Great 
was his consternation, great the amazement of the con¬ 
gregation, when a solitary young lady arose and walked 
with a firm step toward the altar. Heavens! Was it 
possible? A sinner in church at any time except during 
revival services? It was certainly disturbing and 
seemed somehow to be a little impolite ... the hour 
was late. Then—could it be?—yes, there was no 
mistake, it was that well-known young lady, Miss Wil¬ 
lard. The audience was electrified; joy succeeded sur- 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


201 


prise; the revival was not completely interred after all. 
As the lost lamb came penitently into the fold, many 
eyes were moist with tears, and the audience joined 
as one person in the triumphant singing of the 
Doxology. 

It was none too soon. The fortitude of spirit with 
which religion frequently endows the faithful—and 
Miss Willard was eminently faithful—was soon to be 
tested by two of life’s greatest tragedies: disappointed 
love and death. 

Meanwhile she had her living to earn; and she 
earned it in what was then, for women, the only pos¬ 
sible way—by teaching. And how she roved! Within 
sixteen years she taught in eleven different institutions. 
In April, i860, she just missed a situation, and her 
sense of loss was so great that she “said several harsh, 
un-Christian words,” which made her very sad. But 
the first of June found her in a squat little hamlet on 
the prairie not many miles from her home, ready to 
instruct in a typically red and typically ugly school- 
house. Fortified with a pocket Testament she entered 
the rickety shack, read a few verses, led in the singing 
of “I Want to Be an Angel,” offered prayer, and began 
to teach. Her methods we^e simple. “Have every¬ 
thing sytematized to the last degree. Make only four 
rules, namely: ‘Don’t be tardy; don’t leave seats with¬ 
out permission; don’t be absent; don’t whisper’; but 
wink at the latter unless it becomes too palpable.” The 
assimilation of hard facts was to be made easy. “Have 
them sing the multiplication table. Have them sing 
the capitals and bound the states so as to make it a 
sort of game and less distasteful. . . .” But of what 





202 


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value were lenient rules and kind methods of instruc¬ 
tion for children who acted as though they were posi¬ 
tively disinclined to be angels either in fact or song, 
and who were not susceptible to melodic combinations 
of state capitals and boundaries? “Have been 
obliged,” she confessed on June 12, “to box the ears 
of two reprobates, ferule the brown palms of four, 
and lay violent hands on another to coerce him into 
measures that did not meet his views.” Another thing 
troubled her even more; she was bewildered to note 
that, notwithstanding the “total depravity they mani¬ 
fest in their conduct . . . the little creatures bring me 
flowers and evince in many little actions a kind regard 
that is most pleasant.” The same inexplicable phe¬ 
nomenon bothered her at the house where she boarded. 
The members of the family were not religious, yet they 
were actually gracious and considerate; the daughter in 
particular was “very kind to me and marvelously 
thoughtful of my happiness.” It was all so incongru¬ 
ous, so almost unbelievable; half a dozen people, with 
an everlasting hell yawning at their feet, were chari¬ 
table, unselfish and happy all the time, while a Chris¬ 
tian young lady, with heaven’s eternal glories awaiting 
her, moped around her room, downcast, disheartened 
and thoroughly homesick. Her journal shows all this; 
it was her confessional, her self-absolver, her “safety- 
valve,” as she said. She filled it with mystical abra¬ 
cadabra, with spiritual flagellations, with plaintive 
morbidities, and thus attained a temporary serenity. 
Her “o’er-fraught heart” spoke out its grief through 
her pen, and therefore did not break. But she was still 
perturbed when, in her frequent periods of introspec- 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


203 


tion, she noted her many sins of omission and commis¬ 
sion. “I sing songs instead of quiet and lofty psalms, 
talk localisms and nonsense instead of morality and 
religion; play chess instead of reading history and the 
Bible; use amusing, quaint expressions instead of well- 
selected, elegant English; laugh instead of think . . . 
think more of doing up my hair nicely than of exerting 
a pure, refining influence.” It was a thoroughly chas¬ 
tened and subdued girl who returned to her home at 
the close of the term. 

But further chastening was coming. “I wonder why 
God lets me live?” she mourned on Lincoln’s inaugura¬ 
tion day, in a fit of jealousy because her brother could 
vote while she could not. “I’m no earthly use. . . . 
Nobody seems to need me. . . . But perhaps I may 
be needed some day and am only waiting for the 
crisis. . . . We are told that God in his wisdom makes 
nothing in vain.” And yet . . . some things were 
vain. A bit further on she recorded this item: “I tried 
to make my toilet with unusual care, thereby succeed¬ 
ing in looking as ugly as sin.” No doubt she was over¬ 
sensitive concerning her personal appearance; her 
journal proves that her face worried her almost as 
much as her religion. But the great experience was 
coming; after all, there was someone who needed her 
—for a season. 

“Of the real romance of my life, unguessed at save 
by a trio of close friends, these pages may not tell. 
When I have passed from sight I would be glad to 
have it known, for I believe it might contribute to a 
better understanding between good men and women,” 
she wrote in her autobiography. But the hint was 





204 


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not taken; it was one outside the charmed circle who 
first told the truth. 

“Sometime, if it pleases Thee, give me the love of 
a manly heart, of one that I can trust and care for 
next to Thee,” was a supplication which, with many 
others, she laid regularly each night before the throne 
of grace. In the spring of 1861 she became tempo¬ 
rarily convinced that her petition had been heard; for 
it seemed that, in the person of Charles H. Fowler, a 
theological student, the deepest yearning of her heart 
was to be satisfied. He was young; he was not ugly; 
he was to be a minister of God—what more could such 
a young woman wish? “For the first time in your 
life,” she apostrophized herself, “you strong-hearted 
personage, who have smiled so wisely upon the secrecy 
with which other girls invest their journals, you must 
hang your head, look remarkably foolish, and hide this 
book between the mattress and the feather bed! O 
simpleton, I mourn over your apostasy. Aren’t you 
ashamed of yourself? No, not in the least!” When, 
on the second of June, he opened a part of his heart, 
her happiness seemed complete. Diplomatic tact, or 
a proper respect for the religious solemnity of the 
occasion, or both, had inspired him to propose on a 
Sabbath evening. “After church and after tea he 
asked me to go walking . . . Coming back—I don’t 
know how it was—he told me that he loved me—that I 
was ‘the first and last and only one.’ And with no 
fear, no shrinking, I told him I had always loved 
him—” The momentous event so excited her that she 
neglected to dash it into her journal until three days 
later, and for the next few months all the world was 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


205 


heavenly. How could she ever have been so foolish as 
to have committed to her journal, two years earlier, 
the statement that, if Saint Paul’s remarks to the 
Ephesians about the advisability of wives being in sub¬ 
jection to their husbands were “to be understood liter¬ 
ally, and applied to me, if ever I’m any man’s wife, I 
should think the evidence sufficient that God was un¬ 
just, unreasonable, a tyrant’’ ? She indulged once more 
in the reading of delicious romances—oh, how much 
sweeter they seemed, now that she had a romance of 
her very own! She even forgot to make periodical 
laments on her lack of beauty—and why should she 
have done so? Perhaps her lover . . . 

For whatever reason, before long the roseate hues 
began to fade from her sky. It was all very well, it 
was genuinely desirable, to have a betrothed who 
talked about religion a good bit of the time; but why 
should his theology be so Calvinistic? Why should he 
keep lugging in dog-eared moralistic volumes for her 
edification when she was in the mood for entrancing 
romances? And was it quite nice, was it wholly chiv- 
alric for him to express so much apparent satisfaction, 
when admitted to the sacred privacies of her journal, 
upon reading the passage, “I acknowledge myself con¬ 
quered '”? Why was it that she felt she could love him 
“so long as he stayed the other side of the room,” but 
became uncomfortable when he boldly ventured to 
approach? Perhaps a few kisses and a little embracing 
might have aroused emotions in her which his meta¬ 
physical tomes and his elevated discourse failed to 
stir. But the passionate exaltation, the emotional 
metamorphosis, did not come; the heavenly put the 




20 6 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


earthly to rout; high-minded discussions about the 
painfully superabundant sins of mortality, about the 
paucity of goodness in the world, and about the ex¬ 
tremely hazardous destiny of all who did not toe the 
Calvinistic mark, curiously failed to act as an alembic 
in which genuinely reciprocal affection could be dis¬ 
tilled. By February, 1862, the engagement was 
broken; Miss Willard’s heart was almost in the same 
state; and Fowler sought balm for whatever wounds 
he may have suffered by plunging deep into the writing 
of a book which refuted forever the fallacious animad¬ 
versions of Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch. “Poor 
fellow!” was Miss Willard’s tersely appropriate com¬ 
ment when she heard of it. 

Thus the golden dream was rudely dispelled; the 
gorgeous visions of simultaneous self-annihilation and 
self-fulfillment in the holy mystery of intimately inter¬ 
twined sensuous and spiritual passion were put to 
flight; and hardly had she recovered sufficient poise to 
endure the onerous weight of drab daily routine when 
the nightmare of her sister’s death followed. “God 
pity me if anything should befall her!” she had written 
during the early days of Mary’s illness. “God will not 
curse me so. ... I can not bear to think of it, it makes 
me shudder.” Nevertheless, the curse did fall. On 
the very night that followed the death, her trembling 
pen slightly alleviated the burden of her poignant 
anguish within her journal’s confiding pages. “June 
8, 1862 .—Mary is dead. I write the sentence—stop 
and look at it—do not know what it means.” She 
dwelt, as people generally do, far more on the ghastly 
but enthralling physical aspects of death than upon 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


207 


the consolation of hope in immortality. “She moved 
her hands convulsively and said, ‘I’ve got Christ—He’s 
right here!’ Then she said to me, ‘Oh, I’m in great 
misery,’ and then, ‘Dear God, take me quick!’ . . . 
slowly and with difficulty she told him [the father] of 
her dread of being buried alive and he promised her 
over and over again that she should not be. . . . She 
groaned a little, then, and for some time she did not 
move, her eyes closed slowly, her face grew white.” 
In the weeks that followed, she wrestled for relief in 
prayer, but “Mary didn’t get well” was the thought 
that resistlessly raged in her mind. The terribly grue¬ 
some yet unescapable fascination of the corpse per¬ 
sisted, and inevitably brought appalling visions of her 
own eventual end. “I am intensely alive. I, who am 
to lie so still and cold beside my sister Mary. . . . 
Here on a piece of blotting paper I keep in my book 
is her name written over and over again in her careless 
round hand. . . . Oh, dainty little hand, I should not 
like to touch you now! . . . Death is unspeakably 
mysterious and awful. The feeling of this grows 
stronger in my soul. The terrible sentence rings in 
my ears, ‘I am to die! I kjn to die!’ No matter to 
what it conducts, the earth side of it—and that is 
what we see—is fearful enough to strike one 
dumb. . . . Oh, if I could keep my face and form for¬ 
ever young, if I could save myself from such a fate 
as Mary’s! . . . Next January my grave may be 
curved under the snow as now hers is, oh, Mary!” 
Such painfully touching morbidities ought, perhaps, to 
lie beyond the reach of criticism; and yet one cannot 
escape noticing that, so far is grandeur from our dust, 





208 


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in the face of the supremest crises of life self-pity is 
commonly far stronger than self-abnegation. 

Certainly, in Miss Willard’s case it was so. But 
by degrees the soul-probing, the fearfully unuttered 
yet scarcely veiled complaint that God had cursed her 
notwithstanding her plea for mercy, grew less notice¬ 
able. Slowly the black pall lifted and life, with its 
myriad trivialities, infinitesimal but ineluctable, rolled 
on in the same old way. There were shoes to lace, 
dresses to make, dishes to wash, Father and Mother 
to wait on—innumerable little things to be done, just 
as there had been when Mary was alive. Above all, 
there was one’s own living to earn, and luckily there 
were plenty of schools and female colleges in which 
one could earn it. For six months she taught in her 
Alma Mater (“I was wild and wicked as a pupil; in 
the same building may I be consistent and a Christian 
as a teacher,” was her thought as she began work 
there) ; for nearly two years more she instructed in 
another women’s college, and varied her work by 
penning “Nineteen Beautiful Years,” a gently melan¬ 
choly account of Mary’s life. The season of 1865-6 
found her laboring with the youngsters in a grade 
school, where her special desire was “to interest the 
children in the history, poetry and morals that are 
bound up in single words.” She selected for study, 
among others, such specimens as supercilious, sandwich, 
consciousness, halcyon, Holy Ghost, horse-radish, 
heaven, vermin and silhouette—“I found that children 
ten years old could be well-nigh fascinated by the study 
of words like these,” was her satisfactory comment. 

And yet, somehow, despite her pardonable joy in 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


209 


arousing an ardent philological enthusiasm in the minds 
of ten-year-olds, she was not wholly content. Another 
year of teaching in a Methodist seminary near her 
birthplace proved to be “dreary and monotonous,” 
even though the religious atmosphere was now per¬ 
fect and no symptoms of total depravity appeared 
among her charges—even though she enjoyed the read¬ 
ing of books which re-proved, in a soothingly satisfy¬ 
ing way, the established fact of Christ’s divinity. “I 
am an inveterate lover of variety,” she reflected at this 
time, “and should have made a traveler if I had 
been a man—as I sometimes wish I had been.” Such 
a wish had never troubled her during her love affair; 
but that was long since past, and she was nearly twenty- 
eight—an age which commonly marks the growth of 
various complicated longings among single ladies. 
But at least she could satisfy her pet desire of travel¬ 
ing, by means of the generosity of a wealthy friend, 
Miss Kate Jackson, although Mr. Willard’s illness 
with consumption deferred the trip; but “when his 
worn body succumbed to its inexorable fate, and his 
triumphant spirit wafted x its way to heaven,” she was 
left free to go on her own way to Europe. Miss 
Jackson was not yet a Christian but had a superabun¬ 
dance of money; Miss Willard was not rich but had a 
superabundance of Christianity; thus the deficiencies 
and amplitudes of both were beautifully counterbal¬ 
anced, and in May, 1868, they set forth on a pilgrim¬ 
age that carried them over most of Europe, a part of 
Africa, and the Holy Land. “The Innocents Abroad” 
had not yet been published, and these two innocents 
did the usual things in the usual way. Thrill fol- 






210 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


lowed thrill with unbroken regularity, and all too 
quickly the busy months flew past, while with incessant 
industry Miss Willard scribbled into twenty commodi¬ 
ous volumes the topsy-turvy impressions that each new 
experience gave. 

Several of those experiences, it must be said, were 
somewhat disillusioning. It was quite exciting to dine 
at an English inn whose landlady had once seen Tenny¬ 
son go by; but it was something of a rebuff to learn 
that the good dame’s only reaction was that “an ordi¬ 
nary looking man passed by,” who had been carefully 
pointed out to her as “Mr. Venison.” The Holy 
Land, which had been the brightest beckoning star of 
the whole excursion, turned out to be a will-o’-the-wisp. 
Miss Willard was inexpressibly shocked at Jerusalem 
—“the most disagreeable, dismal, ugly city 1 have any¬ 
where seen.” The tomb of Christ was even worse; 
over it hung a “frightful daub” of the Saviour, and 
it was adorned with bouquets of weedy flowers “un¬ 
worthy of a child’s dollhouse.” To cap the awful 
climax, the irreverent Miss Jackson gleefully plumped 
her weary limbs down upon the holy sepulchre itself; 
and her companion, too indignant for hortatory speech, 
“gave her a push that spoke volumes.” But worst of 
all was the summit of Calvary, where squatting venders 
sold “beads, ivory crosses, cigarholders, Jericho roses 
and other souvenirs of the so-called sacred place.” . . . 
Paris itself, with its wine-bibbing and “other pleasures 
no less fatal,” was not so bad as this, for certainly no¬ 
body expected anything else of Paris; and besides, at 
that place Miss Willard, in obedience to a physician’s 
prescription, was accustomed to “mix a little wine” 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


21 I 


with water at the dinner table. This prescription she 
followed faithfully for two years, “with a gradual 
tendency so to amend as to make it read, ‘You may put 
water in your wine.’ ” Indeed, Mother’s currant wine 
had, in earlier years, demonstrated its efficiency in re¬ 
storing Frances when she was a little tired. Eventually 
she emptied seven wine-glasses at a London dinner 
without noticing any deleterious effects beyond “a flush¬ 
ing of the cheek, an unwonted readiness at repartee 
and an anticipation of the dinner hour, unknown to 
me before or since.” In later years, she was happily 
advised by some friends that they had found “a bottle 
of thoroughly boiled water to be a perfectly safe and 
satisfactory substitute for wine”; but while abroad she 
was ignorant of this salutary fact. 

Germany was somewhat better than Paris ... it 
had other liquors. In Berlin she secreted in her journal 
the statement, “My beer muddles my brain.” But— 
there were stronger concoctions which would clarify 
one’s mental activities, instead ofYpiaking one tipsy. 
In November, 1868, Berlin weather made her feel 
“chilled and miserable”; but a kindly disposed gentle¬ 
man recommended two stiff glasses of rum and water, 
“drinking which I escaped all evil consequences and— 
lived in my own world awhile!” She did not include 
this episode in her autobiography, where some apolo¬ 
getic passages concerning her alcoholic experimenta¬ 
tions were thoughtfully included for the benefit of the 
uninitiated; she made the chary admission that, advised 
by a Sunday School leader to consume a keg of beer 
strictly and solely for her health, she “drank a nauseat¬ 
ing glass at dinner, rebelling at every dose, experienc- 




212 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


ing no benefit, and abjuring it forever when the blessed 
Crusade wrought its miracle upon our hearts.” But 
the blessed Crusade had not yet wrought its miracle; 
and so she continued to put a little water in her wine, 
to muddle her brain with beer, and to live happily in 
her own world. 

There were other worlds, however, perhaps less 
seductive but far more imperative and importunate; 
for example, there was the sphere of feminine semi¬ 
naries, crying for leaders who were shining exemplars 
of sobriety, probity, industry, impeccable propriety and 
conventionality—in fact, of all the Christian virtues. 
Such an exemplar Miss Willard was; and, upon her 
return home in September, 1870, it was only natural 
that, because of her known integrity of character and 
wide experience as a teacher, she should have been 
chosen to head an undertaking that was the rarest of 
oddities—something new under the sun. 

The Evanston College for Ladies, of which Miss 
Willard became President on February 14, 1871, had 
been founded by an association of women who, look¬ 
ing with eyes askance upon the abhorrent masculine ad¬ 
ministrations of such colleges as Vassar and Mount 
Holyoke, determined to establish an institution which 
should have a woman President, women trustees, 
women teachers, women students, and, in fact, an insti¬ 
tution in which “women should be, for the first time, 
recognized and proved as the peers of men in adminis¬ 
trative power,” as its new President stated. The stu¬ 
dents were to be permitted to take certain courses in the 
adjoining Northwestern University, but they were 
“under our care exclusively as to morals and manners.” 




213 


FRANCES E. WILLARD 


There was but one prime requisite: “Just be a Christian 
lady,” was the motto of the new college. Incidentally, 
certain strict principles were prescribed to insure the at¬ 
tainment of this twin excellence. Christian ladies, of 
course, would not disregard even the smallest of the 
school’s regulations: they must never burn lights after 
the bell, be tardy at engagements, be noisy or uproari¬ 
ous; rather, they must be low-voiced and gentle-man¬ 
nered, kind and considerate, and in general as far above 
reproach as any of their teachers. Particularly must 
they avoid contamination with the young men of the 
neighboring University; they must shun secret sleigh- 
rides and moonlight walks with the opposite sex, as they 
would shun a pestilence. In one way only were they 
allowed to associate with males: after much musing and 
prayer, President Willard decided to hazard the suc¬ 
cess of her sacred cause by suffering her precious 
charges to indulge in forensic intercourse at the men’s 
evening literary and debating societies, where teachers 
were forbidden, since “their presence would be irk¬ 
some”; but the charming young creatures must always 
go and return by themselves, in companies of not less 
than four, “in all cases unaccompanied by gentlemen.” 

So nobly did they fulfill their trust that their benig- 
nantly austere President, reflecting with sorrow upon 
the errors of her own college days, often wished that 
she had behaved one-half—nay, one-quarter—as well. 
When, Sunday after Sunday, she gazed upon the ser¬ 
ried ranks of her prim and precise students going to 
church “after their own sweet will,” never whispering 
or tittering within its holy walls, and withering with 
contumelious glances any rash youth who, at the en- 





214 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


trance of the hallowed edifice, vainly tried to slip love 
notes into their chaste hands, it was not strange that her 
breast thrilled with maternal affection for them all, and 
that she was often moved to tears. Yes! Childless 
though she was, and very improbable as it now seemed 
that her state would ever be different, she could be the 
spiritual mother of this flock of innocent lambs. She 
could give them numerous talks on “Moral Horticul¬ 
ture,” she could visit them one by one in their rooms, 
put her arms around them and pray together with them, 
and she could truthfully call them “My girls.” But the 
keenest joy of all was reserved until, during revival 
services, all of her girls except two—“one of whom 
was a Catholic, and a very good Christian, by the way” ; 
the character of the solitary black lamb was not dis¬ 
closed—became church members. And when one of her 
pupils, lying upon the operating table with her hands 
crossed in prayer, looked up brightly before taking the 
anesthetic and said, “Oh, Miss Willard, we girls are all 
in heaven and you are the center of our band!” it 
seemed that her cup of joy was indeed overflowing. 

In heaven, doubtless, they were; but its golden 
round was narrowly circumscribed. Just outside the 
celestial portals loomed a portentously menacing mas¬ 
culine hell, whose fallen angels sounded an ever increas¬ 
ing crescendo of prodigious kicks and thumps upon the 
gates of the unprofaned adytum. Was it the bitter 
irony of fate which had manipulated things so that Miss 
Willard became sovereign of that fair demesne on 
Saint Valentine’s Day? It seemed so; for, after one 
joyously fleeting year had passed, who should be elected 
President of Northwestern University but her quondam 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


215 


suitor, Charles H. Fowler? Fortune’s untrustworthy 
wheel had played an even queerer trick than usual. Sup¬ 
pose she had never met him; suppose she had never 
revealed the most carefully guarded confidences of her 
heart to him; suppose, even, that she had married him; 
suppose—but what was the use of supposing? Here he 
was, this pestiferous Lucifer, burning no longer with 
timorous amativeness, but with a glowing desire to win 
back the seraphic realms from which the masculine 
legions now under his command had been ousted. The 
battle was on. Fowler, with Bishop Colenso’s scalp 
tucked victoriously beneath his belt, was fully confident 
of the outcome; but his antagonist had no souvenir of 
victory to give her strength for the fray. The new 
President adhered to the hideous doctrine that there 
should be co-educational equality; he did not seem 
convinced, as Miss Willard was, of the urgent need 
to “lift the plane on which young manhood stands to 
the higher level of young womanh(ood”; he positively 
believed that young college ladies would get on quite 
well with very little supervision, that they might even, 
without asking for special permission, be attended by 
young men to the various public exercises, and that they 
might wander off from the grounds at all times, without 
the cognizance of their teachers. Miss Willard 
stuffed her dainty fingers in her equally dainty ears 
to shut out such corroding declarations; but the fiat 
had gone forth and the cataclysmic changes were 
wrought. The shocking alteration in affairs had been 
all the easier because her administration had not con¬ 
duced to a sound financial condition. For this she was 
not wholly to blame—the devastating Chicago fire of 




216 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


1871 had resulted in a stringency of support for her 
institution; but conceivably the “Evanston College 
for Ladies” was doomed by its very nature to fail. 
Whatever the reason, it did fail; and Northwestern 
University, in payment for taking over the control of 
the female college property, shouldered all the mone¬ 
tary obligations of the defunct institution. President 
Fowler smiled a grim smile of victory and thrust 
another scalp beneath his belt, while his hairless victim 
found what solace she could in accepting the deanship 
of women and a professorship of Esthetics. 

The solace was small, and she was not in an esthetic 
mood. Whatever love for the beautiful she may have 
had was rudely impaired when she was forced to teach 
obstreperous youths who wrote on the blackboard, 
“Miss Willard runs the Freshmen like a pack of girls,” 
when a yowling cat was entombed in her desk during 
an entire recitation period, and when all the ample re¬ 
sources of creaking classroom hinges were maliciously 
brought to bear upon her over-wrought nerves. She 
erased the glaring sentence, freed the terrified puss, and 
oiled the squeaking hinges; but these were minor 
troubles—it was the growing unconcern of the un¬ 
shackled girl students that plagued her most. They, 
whose greatest delight had hitherto been to act as 
Christian ladies should, now manifested a “lightness of 
bearing, a pertness of speech and manners, and a ten¬ 
dency to disorder,” which were entirely novel; further¬ 
more, and worse, they showed a “stronger tendency 
toward sociability than toward study.” For all she 
knew, they might be going off on surreptitious sleigh- 
rides and moonlight walks—all because of those awful 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


217 


young men! “Though a few have been gentlemen/’ 
she communicated to the faculty, “the majority have, 
by their rude behavior, much increased the unpleasant¬ 
ness of the family life, while their influence over the 
young ladies [has been] uniformly directed against 
order and discipline.” But the faculty was predom¬ 
inantly masculine, and, therefore, obdurate and pig¬ 
headed; and when the question of student supervision 
came to a test vote, she voted alone. For some two 
years this miserable state of things went on; at the end 
of that time it became more than human nature— 
Miss Willard’s human nature—could endure, and ac¬ 
cordingly she resigned. Along with this bitter pill, she 
was forced to swallow another; a final report of a com¬ 
mittee, appointed to investigate her activities, censured 
her, in courteous but unmistakable language, for ineffi¬ 
ciency in carrying out the rules of the institution. This 
was the last straw; she burst into weeping and fled from 
the hated room where her executioners had gathered 
to effect their grim deed. Lying in tears upon her bed, 
and thinking over what seemed to be the tragic in¬ 
justice of the whole business, she endured the sharpest 
spiritual torture of her life. “I tried so hard and meant 
so well!” was the keynote of her woe. Calmer 
thoughts at length succeeded; the sunny presence of her 
girlhood’s illness returned and soothed the rebellious 
surgings of her mind, and she experienced the joy of 
forgiveness toward those who had so cruelly treated 
her. 

A few months later, in fact, she did more—she 
openly confessed her forgiveness. Moved by a private 
conversation with a prominent evangelist about the 




218 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


duties of a Christian, she became convinced that she had 
been in error. Returning to Evanston, she sought out 
Fowler and said to him, “I beg your pardon for every¬ 
thing I have ever said and done that was not right.” 
Perhaps a little private malice unconsciously crept into 
those words—had she not once told him that she 
loved him? And then the man who had once been her 
fiance, replied, “To one who comes to me as magnani¬ 
mously as you have done I surely can not say less than 
that I beg your pardon”; and they shook hands. Per¬ 
haps, again, there was a touch of malice in his reply— 
certainly, he could not easily have said less. But at all 
events he had had his way. Fortified by his double 
victory, he was emboldened to press on to still greater 
triumphs: to attain the office of Bishop in the Metho¬ 
dist Episcopal Church, and to be the first to establish a 
church of that denomination in St. Petersburg, Russia. 

But this episode, in which she triumphed over self, 
was still to come to Miss Willard. In the meantime, 
so gentle, so resigned, and yet so plainly strengthened 
by a special manifestation of divine grace did she seem, 
it was no wonder that one of her cousins, a minister, 
should have remarked, as he bade her good-by when she 
left for her home: “Our cousin is either soon to go to 
her heavenly home or from this time her life is to be 
enlarged!” 

IV 

The heavenly home had to wait some years, for 
Miss Willard’s life was destined first to be enlarged. 
Contemptible men, with their intrusiveness and their 
bovine adherence to unbending traditions of masculine 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


219 


superiority, might temporarily triumph and drive her 
from her throne; a hateful press might keep calling her 
“a female Bluebeard,” because of her emancipating 
activities; a college of, by and for women might go 
catapulting to destruction; but there were other worlds 
to conquer. Those dull, loutish creatures thought she 
was beaten, did they? Well, she would show them. 
How could they guess that, in that gracefully delicate 
little figure, now apparently crushed in defeat, there 
lurked a raging energy which was only biding time be¬ 
fore it burst forth; how could they know that those 
limbs, so tender and fragile in appearance, contained 
thews and sinews of steel, and that the seraphic counte¬ 
nance, with its almost unearthly radiance, was a mask 
that concealed an adamantine strength of purpose? 
That head, if one overlooked the somewhat dis¬ 
enchanting nose-glasses, appeared indeed, to be an 
angel’s: the soft hair parted in the middle and 
sloping in graceful unobtrusiveness down past the ears, 
the decidedly intellectual yet smooth and shapely brow, 
but more than all, the eyes, whose untroubled gaze 
seemed focused in rapt contemplation upon visions im¬ 
measurably remote from mundane trivialities—all 
these were distinctly cherubic properties. But, on the 
best of authority, it is known that angels themselves 
have, with unsuspected gigantic strength, rolled mas¬ 
sive stones away; and in the placid but imperturbable 
primness of that mouth with its slightly protruding up¬ 
per lip, in the dauntless intrepidity of the firmly 
molded chin, there were tokens of a gigantic will¬ 
power that might not only roll away stones, but might 
even move mountains. It may well be that Miss Willard 




220 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


herself did not suspect her power at this time; and yet 
what subtly mysterious yet veraciously prophetic 
agency had commanded her pen, years earlier, to in¬ 
scribe the prediction, “But perhaps I may be needed 
some day and am only waiting for the crisis” ? 

As if by magic, the crisis came at the precise mo¬ 
ment when she was waiting. The temperance move¬ 
ment in America had not made much headway thus far; 
its halcyon light had occasionally burned somewhat 
brightly, but more often it had flickered feebly amid 
the Stygian darkness of a land totally under the pall 
of inebriety. Just before the Civil War, it had flared 
up brilliantly; but, following that national catastrophe, 
the flame approached perilously near the socket. Such 
was the general state of things immediately preceding 
the time when Miss Willard met her debacle; and then 
something happened which was to make the tiny blaze 
leap toward the zenith until it had lighted the whole 
land with its coruscating flames. 

The striking metamorphosis itself is far easier to 
discuss than its cause. There had been temperance 
speakers galore in America for many years, who had 
ravaged the country, bellowing and snorting in inar¬ 
ticulate anger as they ferociously denounced the liquor 
traffic; but it was one of the lesser fry who, apparently 
through no fault of his own, touched off the match that 
started the great conflagration. In December, 1873, 
Mr. Dio Lewis had delivered conventionally blatant 
prohibition addresses at Fredonia, New York, and at 
Hillsboro, Ohio—towns which still contend for the 
honor of being the birthplace of the great cause. There 
had been no unusual activity among temperance circles, 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


221 


but for some reason—for which no satisfactory expla¬ 
nation has been advanced, except the direct interference 
of Providence, and that should be satisfactory enough 
—a revolution was effected. What took place was al¬ 
most as marvelous as would be the sudden evolution 
into solid fact of the wildest tale in the “Arabian 
Nights.” Armies of women, some of whom had been 
cultured and refined, all at once swarmed profusely 
forth, in Ohio particularly, as though some genie had 
exorcised them from his necromantic bottle—but pos¬ 
sibly the figure is unfortunate, since it was hatred for 
bottles that had inspired them to venture abroad. Like 
the inmates of Pandora’s box, one might rather say, 
these “Woman’s Praying-Bands” buzzed around, 
marching pathetically from one saloon to another, sing¬ 
ing, supplicating, exhorting and pleading. The recep¬ 
tions granted them were not commonly very cordial, 
but they were not concerned about cordial receptions; 
they were aflame to lay low the salodn and all its bas¬ 
tard progeny—the family medicine shelf, the apothe¬ 
cary’s prescription, aye, even the sacramental wine. 
Boisterous fellows contemptuously jeered at and 
jostled them on the streets, smoked them out of saloons 
and turned the hose on them; many ministers of the 
gospel, who believed that their high calling did not 
necessarily preclude all indulgence in the practices of 
gentlemen of leisure, excoriated the rampaging females; 
they were frequently arrested—of all things!—for dis¬ 
turbing the peace. On one occasion, a blunderbuss 
was pointed at them; but they marched up to its mouth, 
imperturbably singing, “Never Be Afraid to Work for 
Jesus.” Persecution, of which there was an abundance, 




222 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


inevitably made their faith more staunch; they fought 
back with their greatest weapon, divine supplication, 
and lo! miracles were done as in the days of old. In 
Cleveland, so the chief chronicler of the Crusade 
avouches, three fierce dogs were “sicked” on a band of 
praying zealots; the leading lady, without ceasing to 
pray, “gently laid her hands upon their heads, and 
as though taught by a higher power than their masters, 
they crouched at her feet and were quiet.” From the 
same excellent authority we learn that another dog, 
urged by a vile saloonkeeper upon a suppliant group 
which was stimulating so much hilarity among the 
topers around his bar that the bar itself was momen¬ 
tarily neglected, “wouldn’t even bark, but hung his head 
in shame.” 

Such uncanny events naturally became notorious, 
and the clamor of the contest soon sounded beyond 
the borders of Ohio. At last it reached Miss Wil¬ 
lard’s ears, just at the time when her house of cards 
was beginning to tumble around them. She perused 
every word she could find about the struggle of “Home 
versus Saloon”; she wisely decided that her pupils 
would derive more benefit from writing themes about 
John B. Gough and Neal Dow than about Alexander 
the Great and Plato; she timidly read from manuscript 
school-girlish essays on temperance in several churches; 
and when, the last card having fallen, she fled to the 
East for rest and forgetfulness, the crucial point in her 
life arrived. Years before, premonitions of some such 
decisive change had come to her, but only in a dim and 
indefinite shape. In her Continental journeyings she 
had been shocked at observing the generally abject con- 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


223 


dition of women; she had seen them yoked together 
with dogs in Berlin, with cows in Italy; in Cairo she had 
seen them building railway embankments under the 
overseer’s lash. She had studied “the aspects of the 
woman question in France, Germany and England,” 
and had decided to “talk in public” on her return home, 
in order to arouse unenlightened public opinion out of 
its lethargy. Always, indeed, she had vaguely felt that 
such activities were “to be my vocation, but a constitu¬ 
tional dread of criticism and too strong love of appro¬ 
bation” had restrained her. And now, confronted with 
the choice of becoming teacher in an “elegant school for 
young women,” or of plunging into the work of the 
Crusade, she wavered for an instant; she did not see 
“where the money was to come from.” In her per¬ 
plexity she became inspired; she opened a Bible and the 
first verse that met her eye solved every doubt: “Trust 
in the Lord, and do good; so- shalt thou dwell in the 
land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” Hesitations and 
uncertainties vanished forever before that glowing 
prophecy; henceforward, sustained by the Power which 
had purposefully directed her gaze to that radiant mes¬ 
sage, she would follow the gleam—and then besides, 
she had had enough—more than enough—of elegant 
schools for young women. Never again would she act 
as a mother for untrustworthy girls in their unteachable 
teens; and why should she, when an immeasurably 
greater sphere, groaning for maternal solicitude, rolled 
before her? “What the world most needs is mother¬ 
ing,” she wrote; and her watchword forevermore was, 
“The whole world is my parish and to do good my re¬ 
ligion.” 




224 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Possibly she was a little sanguine; but at any rate 
she was tremendously in earnest. In the Crusade itself 
she had not yet taken any direct part; but, stopping off 
at Pittsburgh on her return to Chicago, she happily 
remedied this deficiency. Arm in arm with a young 
lady teacher, she joined a procession of crusaders which 
soon paused at the door of a saloon. Ranged along 
the curbstone, the ladies, most of whom were “crowned 
with the glory of gray hairs,” sang together “Jesus the 
Water of Life Will Give,” while heavy drays, loaded 
with liquids far livelier than water, bumped and 
rumbled along the stony streets. Then, moving onward, 
the devotees came to a saloon which they were per¬ 
mitted to enter; and there, for the first time, Miss Wil¬ 
lard gazed in hypnotic horror upon the paraphernalia 
of that cesspool of hellish iniquity—upon barrels tempt¬ 
ingly pointed toward the onlookers, upon glittering 
cut-glass and shining decanters, upon the sawdusty 
floor, upon tables encompassed by rows of inviting 
chairs. Indeed, she almost fainted when she unavoid¬ 
ably sniffed the “abundant fumes, sickening to health¬ 
ful nostrils,” although it was true that in Europe her 
nostrils had been weak. The leader read a psalm, 
“whether hortatory or imprecatory, I do not remem¬ 
ber,” and “Rock of Ages” rang out clear and strong. 
Then Miss Willard, kneeling upon the defiling sawdust, 
prayed as she had never prayed, except at her sister’s 
deathbed, while the “crowd of unwashed, unkempt, 
hard-looking drinking men” ogled her. But her fer¬ 
vent prayer seems to have been at least temporarily in¬ 
efficacious; for the proprietor, almost at his wit’s end, 
desperately pointed toward the next room, where sev- 





FRANCES E. WILLARD 


225 


eral low fellows were fighting, begged the intruders to 
leave, and they did so at once, “amid the curses of the 
bacchanalian group.” 

She reached Chicago in September, 1874; within a 
week she was made President of the Chicago Woman’s 
Christian Temperance Union; and then the real career 
of this extraordinary woman began. Everything thus 
far, although perhaps more interesting, had been merely 
ancillary to what was coming. Her greatest defeat 
led to her greatest victory; after all, the wickedness of 
man, by a curious juggling of events, was responsible 
for her eventual world-wide renown. Had she been 
allowed to go on her own willful way, she would prob¬ 
ably have continued to be a more or less successful and 
soon forgotten college President; but perennially sinful 
man, in fulfillment of the everlasting curse inflicted 
upon his primal ancestor, continued to be sinful; and 
his flagitious meddling was directly instrumental in 
pointing Miss Willard toward the heights of fame. 

But those heights could be reached only by indefatig¬ 
able endeavor. The pathless way was slippery and 
treacherous; and somewhere along the course that led 
to the glittering pinnacle, crouched the dragon of in¬ 
temperance defended by multitudinous offspring which 
were skulking about in every covert and bypath. 

Nevertheless, although she sensed some of the dan¬ 
gers that lay before her, Miss Willard girded up her 
loins and prepared to advance. The whole world, in 
a visionary moment, might be her parish, but at first 
she had to be content with a very humble portion of it. 
She had no financial backing whatever, and her first 
headquarters consisted of a single room, gratuitously 





226 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


furnished by the generous Young Men’s Christian As¬ 
sociation—another product of man, to be sure, but in 
this case eminently sinless and therefore acceptable. In¬ 
toxicated by forces more stimulating and sustaining 
by far than the noxious beverages which she proposed 
to destroy, the capable and enormously sincere woman 
hurled herself at her work. She organized prayer- 
meetings, at which total abstinence pledges were show¬ 
ered equally upon the oral and the silent; she sent ar¬ 
ticles to the local press and personally visited each 
editor in the city, to gain his assistance or at least his 
acquiescent tolerance; she addressed secular and re¬ 
ligious mass-meetings and occasionally made a dash into 
some nearby village to deliver the glad tidings of a bet¬ 
ter day. A powerful democratic impulse made her pull 
off all her pretty gift rings and watch chain, and she 
delighted in giving her last dime to some famished out¬ 
cast. For her sincerity was absolute; her only remun¬ 
eration was the few coins that were collected at the end 
of her speeches, and she often went hungry and walked 
rather than rode on cars because she had no money. “I 
am just simply going to pray, to work and to trust 
God,” she asseverated; but several months of subsis¬ 
tence on nothing but prayer, work and trust put her in 
bed with inflammatory rheumatism. Then she became 
more reasonable and confessed her impecunious state to 
the women in her organization; they went about tear¬ 
fully soliciting funds, and a hundred men remedied 
matters by giving ten dollars apiece. Until 1886, she 
received no salary, and she steadfastly refused to accept 
more than twenty-five dollars per lecture, although she 
was offered much more. Such complete devotion soon 





FRANCES E. WILLARD 


227 


became known to her advantage, and she was made sec¬ 
retary of the Illinois W. C. T. U. In a little time she 
was elected corresponding-secretary of the National 
Woman’s Temperance Convention; indeed, her name 
had been proposed for President of that organization 
in less than a year from the time when she began her 
work of reform. 

Evidently, there was something about this incon¬ 
spicuous little woman that caused her to stand sharply 
out among gatherings of ladies who, in many particu¬ 
lars, were much more prepossessing. Unconsciously, 
perhaps, they dimly sensed some portion of the truth 
—here was one of the most notable and many-sided 
women of a notable and many-sided century. Its super¬ 
abundance of moral enthusiasm, its unreserved and un¬ 
hesitating exaltation of a faith marvelously tempered 
by a prosaic and almost childlike affection for works, 
its rigorous adherence to emotional ruts delved by im¬ 
memorial traditions, its complete distrust of all but me¬ 
chanical and society-redeeming innovations, its over¬ 
weening pride in contemporary achievements, its shal¬ 
low and fatally facile optimism, its blushingly hypocrit¬ 
ical silence concerning vital forces, its apologetic soft¬ 
ening of brutal and unavoidably conspicuous facts— 
something of all these qualities, inexplicably and indis¬ 
solubly blended in varying proportions, was what 
formed her personality. But she showed hardly a trace 
of the more significant, although less widely diffused 
and assimilated, characteristics of that century—the be¬ 
lief that truth untinctured by doctrinaire or pragmatic 
colorings might conceivably be valuable for its own 
sake, the tentative acceptance of radically unprece- 





228 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


dented innovations without fear of sequential havoc, the 
application of experiment to fields hitherto fenced 
about by supposedly divine anathemas, the joy of living 
vigorously in a definite universe without too much con¬ 
cern for an indefinite one, the thrill of completely ex¬ 
hausting the immortally ephemeral moment. Her in¬ 
telligence in such matters might be exceedingly limited, 
but it was well that this was so; otherwise, her ardor 
would have been dampened. But no corroding cynicism, 
no sceptical doubt concerning the righteousness of her 
cause ever touched her. What could be clearer, she 
thought, than the vast chasm that separated woman 
from man? “The centripetal forces of her nature will 
always draw her strongly toward the light,” she cogi¬ 
tated, “while the centrifugal forces of his nature will 
drive him afar off into darkness”; but she would 
bridge that apparently impassable gulf so that man’s 
erring feet might turn toward the light before it was 
too late. There in front of her lay the course to be 
followed, and with unfaltering step she trudged along. 

The milestones mapping that remarkable journey 
became steadily more numerous. Her own brain con¬ 
ceived the national motto, “For God and Home and 
Native Land,” that was adopted at the national con¬ 
vention in 1876. At the same time she tried a new 
venture. Disregarding the almost tekrful pleading of 
her friends, she came out boldly in favor of universal 
suffrage; for in solitary prayer the idea had come to 
her, borne in upon her mind, as she correctly believed, 
from loftier regions, that she must speak for the ballot 
as woman’s weapon for protection for the home against 
the tyranny of drink. In the end, having abandoned 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


229 


faith in the two leading political organizations, she 
joined forces with the Prohibition Party when it came 
out for equal suffrage. The male members of that 
party could not very well be expected to wear the sim¬ 
ple bow of white ribbon, which, “emblematic of purity 
and peace, on the principle of ‘first pure, then peace¬ 
able,’ ” was the pledge of the W. C. T. U., inasmuch as 
it looked slightly effeminate; but, surely, the men should 
have some emblerxi. What would match the white rib¬ 
bon so well, Miss Willard thought, as the white rose? 
The thought was straightway executed; and white cel¬ 
luloid roses henceforth blossomed in many a manly 
buttonhole. But she was destined to learn that even 
such an excellent device as this was not sufficient to 
keep unstable men in the right way. Less subtle in 
strategy than that phenomenal Quaker lady, Susan B. 
Anthony, she believed that the new party was sincere 
in its espousal of suffrage; but, much to her chagrin, 
she found that she had been deceived when, in 1896, 
for reasons of political expediency, that party threw 
suffrage overboard. 

In the meantime, happy in her nescience of the future, 
she drove ahead, continually finding new channels for 
self-expression. She felt properly flattered when 
Dwight L. Moody besought her to join forces with him 
in his evangelistic endeavors; but he was interested in 
temperance work chiefly for the sake of man’s regen¬ 
eration, while Miss Willard was more practical—con¬ 
crete methods of saving women and children from the 
blight of the iniquitous traffic appealed to her more 
than the dubious salvation of man—and so she re¬ 
fused. A petition to the Illinois Legislature, asking 





230 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


that the question of liquor licenses might be determined 
by the votes of both sexes, was largely the work of her 
hand, although it was her ageing mother and dear 
friend, Anna Gordon, who ironed the huge strip of 
cloth, bound in blue and red and stretching nearly a 
quarter of a mile under its burden of two hundred thou¬ 
sand signatures, until it was as smooth as a starched 
shirt bosom. The fact that the petition was denied was 
a mere bagatelle—was she not prepared for opposition, 
for temporary setbacks? Even the shockingly sudden 
death of her brother, Oliver, did not prevent her from 
making an appointed address a few hours after she 
received the fatal message. To a woman of such tire¬ 
less energy, whose supreme devotion obliterated defeats 
and tragically personal pangs which would have caused 
most women to melt into ineffectual tears, but one thing 
could come—and it came. She might weep in private 
over her losses, she might stir up a sea of sobs in her 
audience when she revealed the intimate sorrows of her 
heart; but in these ways she attained the strength that 
strong souls always gain after passing through emo¬ 
tional collapses, and her listeners inevitably loved her 
all the more when she opened the springs of passions 
kindred to their own. What a woman she was! All 
that was best in them seemed to be marvelously com¬ 
pacted in that inspiring, that magnetically human 
figure. When Bishop Vinfcent called her “Saint 
Frances,” when Miss Anthony eulogized her as “this 
jewel of women,” they were merely voicing the general 
sentiment. In 1879 the inevitable happened: she was 
elected President of the National W. C. T. U. 

“My beloved Octopus,” was the endearing epithet 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


231 


applied to her by a close friend in the delicious fellow¬ 
ship of private life; but the term might even more fit¬ 
tingly be used in characterizing her public endeavors. 
Recognized at last as perhaps the dominating power in 
the sea of feminine activities, the gentle monster 
stretched out her tentacles in every direction. She was 
sensitive to every tremor that touched her domain; not 
the smallest ripple escaped that electrically surcharged 
body whose tenacious feelers penetrated to every cor¬ 
ner of the vasty deep. Occasionally, to be sure, some 
of those ramifying tentacles met some obstructive force 
that sorely wounded them. Her brother’s death had 
left vacant the editorship of the Chicago Evening Post, 
and into the breach the gallant lady rushed. But the 
paper was now to have a different policy. Its new chief 
would not stoop to sensationalism, to “low details not 
lawful to be uttered,” to “the savagery of the pugilist 
and baseball columns”; no “beery mental flavor” could 
be allowed in a publication that was expressly intended, 
as a public card announced, for a constituency “located 
not in barrooms and billiard halls,” but in places of 
honorable business and in religious homes. Unex¬ 
pired contracts for liquor advertisements, however, 
could not be abrogated; the dwellers in many homes 
were outraged at the discrepancy between the tone of 
the editorial pages and the advertisement columns; 
and low creatures, whose beery mentality rejoiced in 
the savagery of baseball news, bought other publica¬ 
tions which fully gratified their vile desires. Within 
a fortnight the paper was sold at auction. 

Still, this was a minor episode. A little thing like 
journalism might be impossible of reform; but there, 




232 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


opposing her, lay the huge, man-made world groaning 
under the weight of intemperance, of the social evil, of 
feminine subordination—she would roll those encum¬ 
brances away! How could she fail, now that the nec¬ 
essary power had been placed in her hands? “Oh, that 
I were a Don Quixote in a better cause than his ... !” 
she had exclaimed, years before—and now she had that 
better cause. The stories of Charlotte Corday and Joan 
of Arc, which had strongly affected her youthful mind, 
recurred to her now—she would be another Charlotte, 
a modern Joan, encased not in habiliments of vulnerable 
steel, but, equipped with the breastplate of righteous¬ 
ness, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit, 
she would lead the mighty hosts of women to enduring 
victory. “These are the times that try women's souls,” 
was the happy paraphrase with which she strengthened 
them. “Separated, we are the units of weakness,” she 
wrote, “but aggregated we become batteries of power. 
Agitate, educate, organize—these are the deathless 
watchwords of success.” Guided by such principles, 
she introduced her “Do Everything” policy, which at 
first meant the undoing of cluttering abuses which 
trammeled the organization over which she presided. 
Unlike Miss Anthony, who kept strictly on one path 
and who refused to circulate “Frances Willard's prohi¬ 
bition literature” (not, as she said, “because I love 
prohibition less than Frances Willard does, but be¬ 
cause I consider suffrage more important just now”), 
she was thoroughly convinced that she could straddle 
several paths at one time with ease. But, while this 
form of locomotion inevitably made her wobble a 
bit, she continued in a general way to go ahead. 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


233 


She swept into ignominious dereliction the compli¬ 
cated and fettering system of management by com¬ 
mittees which had been in vogue (“if Noah had 
appointed a committee the ark would still be on 
the stocks,” she remarked), and inaugurated a 
system distinguished by simplicity and unity. She 
placed each department of work under the direction 
of one superintendent who was free to choose her own 
methods and select her own aids, but who was per¬ 
sonally responsible to the President. Thus, each na¬ 
tional superintendent of the separate departments had 
one superintendent under her in each department; those 
superintendents had subordinates similarly organized: 
the great ruled the little, the little ruled the lesser, and 
so on ad infinitum. Lack of funds barred nobody; the 
dues were fixed at one cent per week—a mere mite for 
each member, which became a tidy sum, however, when 
the members were numbered by scores of thousands. In¬ 
dividual responsibility was the dominating idea in 
everything; talent was quickly and cordially recognized; 
above all, she showed complete trust in her lieutenants. 
She gave them positions which they feared they could 
not successfully fill; then she made them think that they 
could—and they frequently did. When discord or carp¬ 
ing complaints appeared, she would say, “See here, 
Honey!” to the offender; and the offender would melt 
into contrite tears, promise to do better, and almost 
always do so. But she would not brook continual in¬ 
efficiency or continual fault-finding; and when either 
public or private reproof was necessary, it was ad¬ 
ministered with scathing force. At such moments her 
tiny form seemed to swell and tower, until, in the awe- 





234 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


struck imagination of the culprit, she appeared trans¬ 
formed into an Amazonian chieftainess or a rein¬ 
carnated Briinnehilde. “I should think her about eight 
feet high and weighing about four hundred pounds,” 
said a terrified old toper, who was also a great lawyer, 
in describing the impression which her platform appear¬ 
ance had made upon him. Qualities that seemed as op¬ 
posite as the poles were curiously mingled in that rare 
personality: she was a stern harmonizer, an uncompro¬ 
mising friend, a pliable constructionist, a tender¬ 
hearted disciplinarian, a gentle martinet. It is worthy 
of note that her first American ancestor was a major, 
and that her progenitors had numbered two Presidents 
of Harvard, together with several ministers and numer¬ 
ous deacons. 

Had those venerable worthies been able, they would 
doubtless have looked with reproving amazement 
on most of the perplexingly new and unheard-of adven¬ 
tures which their odd descendant carried on; they were 
certainly amazing and disconcerting enough in their 
multiplicity. In 1883, called the year of “The Temper¬ 
ance Round-Up,” since it marked the decennial birth of 
the Crusade, she traveled 30,000 miles and visited 
every state and territory in the Union. Within ten 
years she spoke at every city numbering 10,000 or more 
inhabitants, and at hundreds of towns and villages 
numbering less; in the same period she conducted an 
average of one meeting a day, spending a bare month 
each year for a vacation at “Rest Cottage” in Evans¬ 
ton. Trains and boats were invariably workshops 
for her; aided by her traveling bag, “Old Faithful,” 
which, stuffed full of letters, documents, and temper- 





FRANCES E. WILLARD 


235 


ance, suffrage and political speeches, was always at her 
side, she never rested; incredible though it may seem, 
even while she jogged along on horseback, her nimble 
fingers automatically pushed the pen that recorded the 
thoughts of her tireless brain. “Save when sleeping, I 
have never seen her idle,” a friend once said about her; 
and without doubt even then she was dreaming of new 
conquests. 

Social immorality, among other matters, kept 
troubling her excessively; “intemperance and impurity 
are iniquity’s Siamese Twins,” she reflected. Always 
she was haunted by memories of black wagons in Paris, 
carrying the polluted denizens of the demi-monde to 
their weekly medical inspection; she was horrified upon 
discovering that, in certain states, seduction was of less 
legal importance than the theft of a cow; she winced 
when she was forced to read, on her daily walks, a 
sign ostentatiously displayed above an anatomical mu¬ 
seum, “Gentlemen Only Admitted.” Her world-em¬ 
bracing sympathy traversed seas, mountains and deserts 
as far as remote India, where, she was shocked to learn, 
the British government (which, as its Queen had de¬ 
clared, was founded on the Bible),in an earnest attempt 
to give its soldiers as many of the comforts of their na¬ 
tive land as was reasonably possible, had provided offi¬ 
cial femmes-de-guerre, who were habitually spoken of 
as “the Queen’s women.” At San Francisco, in 1883, 
the traffic in opium and Chinese women, which she 
saw, finally stirred her into action; after brooding for 
some months, she decided that the only solution for 
these atrocious activities lay in the organization of 
women throughout the world. It was done; “For God 




236 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


and Home and Every Land,” henceforth took the place 
of the hitherto selfishly national motto; and, with an 
optimism as unshakable as it was overweening, the in¬ 
fant organization was christened “The World’s 
Woman Christian Temperance Union.” Its members, 
to be sure, included at first the women of but three 
countries—the United States, Canada and England— 
but forthwith the white-ribboned emissaries sped, car¬ 
rying the message of woman’s redemption from ubiquit¬ 
ously man-made vices to India, Australia, China, Japan, 
Ceylon and the Sandwich Islands. After some time, it 
was discovered that certain large tracts of territory, 
such as Africa, Russia and South America, as well as 
other benighted lands, offered many difficulties and 
dangers, and that, when they were visited, the inhabi¬ 
tants of those places were inclined to be unresponsive 
and occasionally hostile; but for such a state of affairs 
the well-intentioned invaders were certainly not to 
blame. They had at least done their duty; and if the 
women in those places preferred to lumber along in the 
same old, well-beaten paths, to remain in abject sub¬ 
mission to foolish customs, and to obey without ques¬ 
tion or complaint the precepts of their lords and 
masters, it was nobody’s fault but their own. If the 
Hindus, in particular, really believed that their native 
definition of woman, “That afterthought of God which 
was sent to bring woe to man,” was conclusive, they 
surely deserved to remain shrouded in the night of 
heathendom. But all women were not so silly; and 
Miss Willard was extremely gratified upon being told 
that a prominent missionary to Japan enthusiastically 
stated, as his honest belief, that Commodore Perry 





FRANCES E. WILLARD 


237 


had not done more for the commerce of that country 
than the messengers of temperance had done for the 
women. 

Moreover, she had many other reasons for gratifica¬ 
tion. As each year of the decade from 1880 to 1890 
was woven into the fabric of history, the “little Protes¬ 
tant nun,” as she characterized herself, gently but 
steadily forced her way more and more deeply into the 
hearts of the myriads who looked upon her as their icon, 
with no attendant loss of reverence for higher gods. 
Was she not, in truth, the “uncrowned queen of Amer¬ 
ica” ? So she was called, and assuredly she merited 
the distinction; the aureole of saintliness which rapt 
imagination depicted encircling that serene brow, radi¬ 
ated an effulgent splendor far more blinding than the 
light from an earthly diadem. As, standing before 
multitude after multitude, that diminutive figure, firm 
in its very fragility, became the cynosure upon which 
thousands of eyes were centered; as the clear, melodi¬ 
ous voice rang out to every corner in tones now thrilling 
with tenderness, now vibrating with intrepid defiance; 
as her homely illustrations, her humorous sallies, her 
quotations of poetry, her furiously unbridled attacks 
on the strongholds of sin were launched at the faces 
that stared up at her in a fascinated immobility that 
was unbroken save by an occasional nod of approbation 
or a responsive smile, it seemed that she was in every 
respect the queen of women. A jesting cynic, contem¬ 
plating in a spirit of amused detachment the groveling 
antics of her feminine coterie, came, as cynics commonly 
do, far nearer the truth than her clamant panegyrists 
when he said, “if Frances Willard should push a plank 





238 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


out into the ocean, and should beckon the white ribbon 
women to follow her out to the end of it, they would all 
go without a question.” There was something inex¬ 
plicable about her, as there is about all great leaders, 
that bordered almost on sorcery; something inscrutable 
and Sphinx-like, something unfathomable and enigmati¬ 
cal, like the recondite charm of the yogi’s captivating 
crystal sphere or the indistinctly muttered incantations 
of wizardry. “She was a bunch of magnetism,” said 
her chief rival for honors, Miss Anthony, “possessing 
that occult force which all leaders must have. I never 
approached her but what I felt my nerves tingle from 
this magnetism.” 

But if, in a part of the public mind, she was elevated 
to the apogee of reverential admiration, if exquisite 
encomiums were showered upon her in a profusion that 
was almost without antecedent or parallel, it was be¬ 
cause in her private capacity she had amply earned that 
rare honor. Her work was literally everything to her: 
society, friendship, affection, home, rest—things which 
for most women are sufficient unto themselves—were 
all subordinated to the higher ends she had in view. It 
was not that she loved these things less; it was that she 
loved her work more. An ineffaceable, persistent 
vision always floated before her—a steel engraving on 
the wall of her childhood’s home, which had been 
printed forever in her mind. It represented “a bright, 
happy temperance home with a sweet woman at the 
center, and over against it a dismal, squalid house with 
a drunken man staggering in, bottle in hand.” There it 
was, that grim, haunting specter, incessantly admonish¬ 
ing her to give every ounce of strength she had to her 





FRANCES E. WILLARD 


239 


task. Her “den” at Rest Cottage, with its walls almost 
hidden by dozens of photographs of co-laborers, its 
floor space almost entirely unsurped by carefully cata¬ 
logued drawers of temperance matter, by scores of 
books, by a handy typewriter and an omnivorous waste- 
paper basket, was her sanctum; but even here the evil 
shade glided in and taunted her with its disquieting 
presence. Here, too, she fought it more strenuously 
than anywhere else. Like a general in his tent, she 
formulated her plans for battle and sent forth her 
commands, wrote out her speeches, cared for her huge 
correspondence, and, in brief, did the thousand and one 
things that had to be done. Yet, despite a constitution 
not naturally vigorous, she remained in good health; 
the regularity of her habits, together with her tireless 
enthusiasm, accounted for this. Except when traveling, 
she rose shortly after seven and retired not much later 
than half past nine; she sat at her desk from nine until 
six, with an hour’s intermission for lunch, and recrea¬ 
tion, which took the form of a tricycle and a home 
exerciser. Walking would have been preferable to 
either, but those long skirts which fashion dictated 
would get in the way, as they had always done since she 
was sixteen. 

Such was her daily schedule. Seated at her desk, 
where the entangling skirts no longer bothered her, she 
continued to spin out her schemes for universal redemp¬ 
tion. But there was so much work to do in order to 
bring it about! There was the Union Signal (succes¬ 
sor to Our Union), the official sheet of her organiza¬ 
tion, to be edited; there were campaigns for constitu¬ 
tional amendments in various states to be carried out 




240 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


with unflagging perseverance, even though such ef¬ 
forts had a most irritating way of being almost uni¬ 
formly unsuccessful. There was the Polyglot Petition, 
which was to do away forever with Oriental indulgences 
in “alcohol and opium, and in other vices,” to be sent 
to “the Governments of the World (Collectively and 
Severally).” When finished, it was a web of white 
muslin over a mile long, half a yard in width, bound 
in red and blue, with names “four columns abreast” to 
the number of 771,000, exclusive of a few millions for 
which even that enormous strip of cloth had no room. 
Then it had to be toted about the land among various 
conventions, and eventually across the ocean, where 
“two richly bound and illuminated volumes containing 
the text of the petition with the signatures of such of 
her royal subjects as were among its signers” were pre¬ 
sented to Her Majesty, the Queen. Then there were 
innumerable meetings to be addressed, interminable let¬ 
ters to be looked after, and there were books—so many 
books!—to write: an autobiography, whose 650,000 
words (at first there were over a million, but she was 
persuaded to cut down the number) were made up 
largely of shreds and patches from her former speeches 
and articles, so that she threw them together in three 
weeks; a volume of biographical slices of the leading 
ladies in the W. C. T. U. sandwiched between historical 
sketches of its growth; a book, “Helps and Hints,” for 
the edification of the white ribboners; a novel, “Mar¬ 
garet’s Victory,” which was to have been printed in Our 
Union , but which was withdrawn as being “too 
woman’s rightsy.” 

But before she wrote at all, her mental machinery 




241 


FRANCES E. WILLARD 


had to be dusted and oiled. Her mind, she admitted, 
was “like a pail of water that has just been drawn from 
a spring and it must settle”; and even then, it was not 
always quite clear, for a little cloudiness caused by un¬ 
settled impurities is frequently to be detected. It ap¬ 
pears, for instance, in “How to Win. A Book for 
Girls,” which her school-mistress instincts, not yet 
wholly stifled by the overflowing years that had inter- 
vented since those far-off days, compelled her to write. 
In this volume the dry bread of advice was made appe¬ 
tizing by a liberal sprinkling of sugary “My dears” and 
“My dear girls.” She recalled her youthful excesses 
in the reading of romances, and warned the tender buds 
for whom she wrote to beware of the nipping frost 
that lurked in “Jane Eyre” and “Thaddeus of War¬ 
saw”; the glamour of those highly seasoned pages was 
unhealthful, was her comment. But, disregarding her 
own conspicuous failure in that field, she advised her 
prospective readers to go into journalism, where 
“woman has now the opportunity to do for journalism 
what she long ago accomplished for literature—to drive 
out the Fieldings and Smolletts from its temple . . . 
to frown upon coarse jests, debasing innuendoes, and 
irreverent witticisms.” Possibly her enormous activi¬ 
ties in other fields had prevented her from acquiring a 
complete knowledge of literature since the coarse and 
debasing works of Fielding and Smollett had appeared. 

Whenever a moment of respite did come—when she 
paused in her labors for a fleeting moment, or when 
in the watches of the night she poured out her soul in 
prayer—there would loom up with awful distinctness 
some phantasm of moral obliquity which had thus far, 





242 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


oddly enough, remained unnoticed. How could she 
have been so thoughtless, so inexcusably careless! Then 
the feverish pen would be at it again, and off would go 
some warning message to her sex or some new petition 
to those in command of political and social power. 
“Girls come and ask me,” she wrote, “ ‘Would you 
dance round dances?’ Dear little sisters, no; don’t 
dance a round dance. The women of the future will not 
do it”—a prophecy destined to be amply fulfilled in a 
manner that she never suspected. Materialism, it ap¬ 
peared to her, was rampant everywhere—“We live 
in a strangely materialistic age, when thought is de¬ 
clared to be a secretion of the brain, and revelation 
looked upon as nothing but a myth,” she pondered; but, 
somehow or other, she could not seem to make much 
headway against it, for the damning doctrines still 
continued to be taught. Divorce, with its sacrilegious 
cheapening of the divinely ordained laws of matrimony, 
flaunted itself with distressing frequency before her 
eyes; she believed “in divorce for one cause only, in 
legal separation on account of drunkenness,” and thus 
managed to deviate but slightly from Scriptural in¬ 
junction. The physical and moral evils of improper 
female attire prompted her to make an admission which 
she seldom made—in one particular woman was even 
more sinful than man; and she warned young men 
against marrying women who deserved to be unsought 
in marriage because of wasp-waists, French heels and 
decollete dresses. Yet she was careful, in her attempts 
at dress reform, not to advocate any sudden changes 
that would have been held up to ridicule. She remem¬ 
bered how Miss Anthony and some other equally de- 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


243 


termined ladies, who cast discretion to the winds and 
donned the once notorious “bloomer” costumes, had 
been subjected to public insult and derision; how the 
rabble had tagged the conspicuous females, had 
thrown sticks and stones, had given “three cheers and 
a tiger” which ended in loud groans and catcalls, and 
had gleefully hooted such doggerel vulgarisms as this: 

Gibbery, gibbery gab, 7 

The women had a confab 
And demanded the rights 
To wear the tights. 

Gibbery, gibbery gab. 

Nevertheless, she spoke in strong terms against the 
use of torturing garments which required the “constric¬ 
tion of the waist and the compression of the trunk,” 
and which, therefore, often caused “serious, sometimes 
irreparable, injury to important vital organs.” 

Activities of such variety (although the list is by no 
means complete) left her precious little time for life’s 
amenities. In truth, how few pleasures of any kind 
were absolutely harmless! Was it possible that, on her 
journey abroad so many years ago, she actually “went 
to see sights on Sunday, went to the theater, and took 
wine at dinner”—things that “I never did and never do 
at home?” To be sure, she had once gone to Wallack’s 
in New York, where she saw a performance of “Rose- 
dale, or the Rifle Ball”; but then, it was a “most re¬ 
spectable . . . reputable play ... no one knows me 
and no harm will be done,” and besides, this “evening 
of wonder and delight” had passed long ago. But as 
to wine—heavens! had she once positively liked, posi- 




244 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


tively drunk the vile stuff with pleasure? When, at 
this time, a well-meaning hostess offered her a glass, 
her cheeks and brow, which had once flushed for a far 
different reason, now colored with indignation as she 
sternly replied, “Madam, 200,000 women would lose 
somewhat of their faith in humanity if I should drink a 
drop of wine.” 

Fortunately, there were a few pleasures which were 
not only harmless but genuinely beneficent. In her 
constant journeyings to fill lecture engagements, 
she often met some of her notable contemporaries. As 
a girl she had profited by reading Henry Ward 
Beecher’s “Lectures to Young Men”; she had con¬ 
tinued to believe in him even after his name had been 
tainted by the ignominy of an egregious scandal; she 
was attracted to him by familiar stories about his 
piquant little ways—his habit of striding into the pulpit 
without removing his hat and of preaching with his rub¬ 
bers on—and accordingly she was highly pleased upon 
being invited to lecture in Plymouth Church. Still, Mr. 
Beecher’s “Sermons on Evolution” had proved too 
strong for her spiritual diet, for the substantially or¬ 
thodox faith of her early womanhood had never 
evolved; and yet her fiftieth year found her writing, 
“my chief mental difficulty has always been, and is 
today, after all these years, to adjust myself to the idea 
of ‘Three in one’ and ‘One in three!’ ” At this age, also, 
she was troubled by another stumbling-block: “Always 
since then,” she confessed, referring to a time when, 
not yet five years old, she had been held up by her father 
so that she could see a dead man in a coffin, “in spite 
of all my faith and the fervors I have known religi- 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


245 


ously, there is about the thought of death the clammy 
horror stamped upon me when I saw that face.” But 
few difficulties or dangers of any sort presented them¬ 
selves when she spent a pleasant hour with Mr. 
Beecher’s even more famous sister at her home in Hart¬ 
ford, Connecticut, at which place, however, Miss Wil¬ 
lard noted, even in her felicity, “Mark Twain’s house 
is within a stone’s throw.” Perhaps some passages in 
his writings may have suggested to her this figurative 
estimate of the distance that separated them; at all 
events, she did not call on that devastatingly icono¬ 
clastic humorist. She was much impressed, upon meet¬ 
ing Walt Whitman, with his “sense of God, Nature 
and Human Brotherhood”; although she reflected 
later, with amazing accuracy, “What he really is I 
do not know.” But she had no doubts at all about 
Whittier, whose abolitionist fervor had been easily 
transferred to the cause of temperance and suffrage; 
and it was very pleasant to hear his deep, low voice 
saying, “But thee must know thee is becoming a figure 
quite conspicuous yonder on thy prairies!” It was 
pleasanter still to learn that he was giving his young 
friends copies of “Nineteen Beautiful Years,” and to 
have him write a preface for the most recent edition 
of that juvenile effort. The only cloud that darkened 
the brightness of the sky during her chat’with him 
came when he expressed doubt concerning his ability 
to write what seemed so easy—a temperance home 
protection song; but perhaps the author of “Songs 
of Labour and Reform” recognized his limitations. 

Miss Willard was not always so wise; and each new 
year found her advancing into new fields of effort. 




246 


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“You have a fatal versatility,’’ a friend once remarked 
to her; and frequently, with a sad little smile, she would 
apologize for her endlessly ramifying projects by re¬ 
peating the kindly accusation. “What mind I have is 
intuitional,” she once wrote in a momentary flash of 
logical insight. “ . . . What I do must be done quickly.” 
Her enemies, of course, had another way of explaining 
her activities—“She is ambitious,” they said. But such 
critical estimates, whether friendly, personal or inimi¬ 
cal, actually explain nothing; they at once say too much 
and too little. Versatility, intuition, ambition—such 
words merely scratch the surface of her character. For 
versatility often packs its scattered component parts 
into a tremendous condensation of energy; intuition 
may descend to sheer craziness, or it may rise to heights 
that excel the loftiest speculations of philosophy; ambi¬ 
tion may be any one of the thousand means whose ex¬ 
tremes terminate respectively in the profoundest of self- 
abasement and the most meretricious self-exaltation. 
And yet, how often do extremes of the widest diver¬ 
gence almost converge ! Genius or idiot, savant or fool, 
martyr or charlatan, saint or fakir—one calls to mind 
scores of historical personages whose characters were 
marvelously compounded of such twin contrarieties. 
Despite the ingenuous simplicity of purpose which may 
easily be seen in all the complexities of Miss Willard’s 
career, despite the almost ridiculously obvious ardor of 
enthusiasm for spiritual ends which illuminates every 
phase, of her enormous interests, the critical observer 
will manifest a wise caution if he refuses to sum up 
her personality in a pat phrase or a brilliantly shallow 
epigram. For simplicity of purpose, like a calm and 





FRANCES E. WILLARD 


247 


translucent river, may have its sources in inexplorable 
chasms and impassable heights; and righteous enthusi¬ 
asm may have been kindled by a celestial fire or by 
baleful, inquisitorial flames. Was it only a wish to 
tickle her audience, or was it the urge of some deeper 
desire, that caused her to say, “honestly, I always 
thought that, next to a wish I had to be a saint some 
day, I really would like to be a politician”? It is easy 
to detect the tone of contented self-assurance in the 
first wish; it was the second that caused her genuine 
concern. Her constant harping upon the rightness of 
suffrage, her joining of forces with the Prohibition 
Party—whose waxing growth during her lifetime she 
doubtless took as an augury of eventual success—her 
immediate acceptance of the many offices that were 
tendered her, are sufficient indications of her strong 
political ambitions. For, should the causes of suffrage 
and prohibition triumph, would not the woman who 
was the leading advocate of one cause, and the second 
chief intercessor for the other, be almost certain to 
reap a reward which even a saint might correctly 
claim? Power—righteous power, no doubt, but at all 
events power—had come to her; and it was only human 
that she should long for more. 

She continued to be human. In 1892 the death of 
her venerable mother robbed her of the last of “The 
Happy Five”; and, although a faith that was rarely 
perturbed had replaced the morose moodiness of her 
early years, she could not endure Rest Cottage now 
that the familiar figure with the blanched countenance 
and white hair had forever departed from the cozy 
little rooms. So she sailed for England, where the 




248 


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warm friendship of Lady Henry Somerset, President 
of the British Women’s Temperance Association, miti¬ 
gated the pangs of bereavement. But a palliating 
force that was even stronger than friendship proved to 
be a more effectual cure. Around her, wherever she 
went, were all too many and too conspicuous signs of 
those flagrant vices to whose subjugation she had dedi¬ 
cated herself: women meekly obedient to men whose 
breath reeked with nicotine and alcohol in all their 
Protean forms, profanity, the social evil, and—hor¬ 
rors! a brand of iniquity which, so far as she knew, 
was rare at home but painfully evident here—gam¬ 
bling. In such an environment, was the woman who, 
in 1887, had been made President of the World’s 
W. C. T. U. to rest—to shed weak tears for an idol¬ 
ized mother whose face, wreathed in angelic smiles, 
was looking down at her from the regions above? No, 
she would never stop—never !—while such things were 
permitted, and, impossible though it appeared, even 
encouraged by those who in their effrontery called 
themselves the better class. 

From city to city she traveled, welcomed by great 
audiences to whom she was often introduced by re¬ 
nowned statesmen. But the sins against which she 
shot the sharpest arrows from her well-stocked quiver 
still refused to fall before the attack; so far as she 
could see, signs and advertisements calling attention 
to the good qualities of a generous variety of Scotch 
whiskies were just as thick as ever. It was all very 
queer and rather discouraging; but no matter—she 
would not bate her labors a single jot. Besides, it was 
encouraging to know that Mrs. Gladstone, whose illus- 




249 


FRANCES E. WILLARD 


trious husband had long been Miss Willard’s ideal of 
statesmanship, was at the head of the Woman’s Liberal 
Federation which was striving to lead English ladies 
into the promised land of emancipation from male 
bondage; it was pleasant to see Queen Victoria, “a 
somewhat stout, short figure dressed in black, without 
a jewel, without a ribbon [would that her strong sense 
of duty had moved her to wear the white ribbon!], just 
a kindly, quiet, dignified lady that anybody would have 
been glad to call his mother or his grandmother.” As 
a girl, indeed, her highest ambition for some time was 
to be called “Queen Victoria’s Maid of Honor.” How 
soothing it was to reflect that the Queen, probably be¬ 
cause she was stimulated and sustained by the whole¬ 
some examples of her many maids of honor, had been 
“true to the sacred duties of wife, mother and friend, 
true to the magnificent powers reposed in her as 
Queen,” and to recall that, upon being asked to explain 
the reason for England’s greatness, the regal lady had 
unhesitatingly replied, “It is the Bible and Christian¬ 
ity”! Yes, in spite of drawbacks and disasters, her 
work had its compensations. 

So, too, had her hours of leisure. Her home exer¬ 
ciser and tricycle were far away; but it gave her a 
peculiarly personal joy to know that the Royal 
Princesses, Louise and Beatrice, had once disported 
themselves upon tricycles at Balmoral. Moreover, 
the bicycle was now coming into use for women as well 
as for men. She approved of it because it was “per¬ 
haps our strongest ally in winning young men away 
from public-houses,” and she therefore felt that she 
would be setting a good example, as well as benefiting 





250 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


her troublesome nerves, if she herself were to ride one. 
So she bought a bicycle, named it “Gladys,” and, 
clothed in a costume which, she took pains to record, 
was but “three inches from the ground,” essayed to 
ride. Three strong-armed young English gentlemen, 
one of whom wore a silk top hat, offered her their 
assistance; and, while two of them on either side and 
the other in the rear steadied “Gladys” as well as they 
could, Miss Willard began to experience the mysteri¬ 
ous charm of simultaneous body-equilibrium and body- 
propulsion. Her progress was not rapid; but after a 
time, certain embarrassing upsets having caused her to 
dispense with the services of the three willing youths, 
for whom a corresponding number of sympathizing 
ladies were substituted, she dared to call out, “Let 
go—but stand by.” After two months of practice “off 
and on daily,” during which time twelve different ladies 
were called into service, and after wisely concluding 
that her failures came “from a wobbling will rather 
than a wobbling wheel,” she was able to mount and ride 
a little without aid. But, will or no will, “Gladys” 
continued to wobble until her mistress thought of a 
happy device. At first she tried to make the frisky 
machine behave by repeating three times in succession 
to herself the proverb, “They reel to and fro and stag¬ 
ger like a drunken man”; but before the third repeti¬ 
tion was finished, the picture of a tipsy man which occu¬ 
pied her mind caused her to launch off the saddle. 
Then she had a lucky thought which solved her diffi¬ 
culty. It occurred to her to substitute, for the shade 
of the inebriate, the image of her mother, saying, “Do 
it? Of course you’ll do it! What else should you 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


251 


do?” With this spiritual assistance, she generally suc¬ 
ceeded; and, as “Gladys” by steady degrees became 
more tame and docile, after three more months her 
rider was able to spin over the ground without suffering 
many untoward mishaps. 


V 

The last six years of Miss Willard’s life were spent 
almost equally in England and the home country. An 
insatiable craving for more work, and then more, grew 
upon her coincidently with the progress of an insidious 
attendant—pernicious anemia. Upon her return from 
one of her trips to England, she was thought by all 
except herself to be an invalid, although one of a 
most unusual kind. “Miss Willard can wear us all 
out now,” said one of her satellites. “I don’t know 
what she would do if she were well.” But, sick or well, 
she had no doubt as to what she was going to do—until 
her last breath, she was going to be unfalteringly 
assiduous in doing good. Back and forth across the 
land, back and forth across the ocean she went, rest¬ 
lessly carrying out her ever broadening program of 
labor. 

In 1896, while seeking recuperation from nervous 
trouble by means of a bicycle tour through Normandy 
in company with Lady Somerset, she read of the awful 
plight of Armenian refugees, who had fled to Mar¬ 
seilles for escape from Turkish oppression and mas¬ 
sacre. Worn out as she was, she turned “Gladys” 
toward that city, and, having reached it, at once en¬ 
gaged in Samaritan activities. She besieged the city 





252 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


authorities until they turned part of a charity hospital 
over to the unfortunates; she helped to rehabilitate the 
building; she assisted in cooking huge kettles of soup 
made of meat, onions and red peppers; and she fur¬ 
nished cloth which the needy women cut up and sewed 
into rough garments. Then she began to cope with the 
problem of making permanent provision for their 
needs. With the aid of her white ribboners, she 
brought two hundred of the outcasts to America, where 
they were helped to become self-supporting. She in¬ 
fluenced her organization to petition Congress for 
financial aid in behalf of the stricken nation; she sent 
letters to ministers, asking them to devote Sunday 
evening sermons to the good cause; the ministers, 
delighted with such a welcome replenishment of their 
stock of homiletic ideas, responded with a will, and soon 
the money began to pour in. At length there was enough 
so that Clara Barton was sent at the head of a reliev¬ 
ing expedition to restore the devastated country. It 
was no wonder that, when a young Armenian immigrant 
saw a woman with the tell-tale snowy badge on her 
bosom as he landed in Portland, Maine, he sprang 
forward, reverently touched the sacred token, bent 
low to kiss the hand that was stretched out to meet 
him, and murmured the one English word that was 
known to him: “Willard.” 

Meanwhile, in the midst of such generous labors, the 
unsuspected but inevitable end was approaching. Dur¬ 
ing the last year of her life, she lessened the burden 
of her activities by revisiting the scenes of her child¬ 
hood and the homes of her ancestors; but she still 
seemed to be slowly drooping even when, in obedience 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


2 53 


to her physician, she took long periods of rest. Her 
weariness now grew pathetically evident, although she 
showed occasional flashes of buoyant expectancy and 
interest in life. It was decided that another journey 
to England was advisable; but just then she discovered 
that Chicago dealers in liquor had vowed to turn the 
Woman’s Temple of that city into a brewery. In the 
face of such an impending tragedy, what mattered, 
even life itself, if it could be averted? So she stayed 
at home and plunged into the work of rescuing the 
sacred structure; it might almost be said that she sacri¬ 
ficed her life to that cause, for a European vacation 
might possibly have restored her health. Nor was 
she content merely to fight for the Temple. A great 
outcry was raised, during the winter of 1897, against 
sensational journalism and against the Corbett-Fitz- 
simmons prize-fight. She sent out requests to promi¬ 
nent women asking them to protest against such 
national disgraces; and she was somewhat nonplussed 
when Miss Anthony took her sharply to task for her 
occasional lack of political common sense. “Don’t you 
see,” the hard-headed Quaker lady wrote, “if women 
ever get the right to vote it must be through the consent 
of not only the moral and decent men of the nation, 
but also through that of the other kind? Is it not per¬ 
fectly idiotic for us to be telling the latter class that 
the first thing we shall do with our ballots will be to 
knock them out of the enjoyment of their pet pleasures 
and vices? If you still think it wise to keep on sticking 
pins into the men . . . you will have to go on doing 
it.” But Miss Willard was unconvinced; she did not 
always believe in mere expediency and opportunism; 




254 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


and so she continued to stick pins into that kind of men 
whose chief delight lay in the enjoyment of pet pleas¬ 
ures and vices. 

But she was not to continue doing so much longer. 
Early in 1898 she went to New York, where the gen¬ 
erosity of the owner enabled her to occupy, free of 
charge, a suite of rooms in the Empire Hotel. After 
two weeks of work, she complained of great languor 
and unnatural lassitude, although she still struggled on 
through hectic days and restless nights. But, early in 
February, she was forced to take to her bed, for influ¬ 
enza had overtaken her. At first she was not thought 
to be in actual danger, and she frequently asked to be 
allowed to dictate “just one very important letter” to 
her very faithful stenographer, Miss Mary Powderly. 
More signatures for the Polyglot Petition—vital com¬ 
munications to the Union Signal —the beloved Temple 
—memories of her childhood—bedside prayers with 
her sister Mary—fragments of old hymns—these and 
other vague thoughts kept rushing through her mind. 
Two days before the end, her niece brought into the 
sick-room some flowers that were the dearest of all to 
her—lilies of the valley—the floral emblem of the 
W. C. T. U. As she lovingly fingered them, her face, 
now grown so haggard and wan, brightened for a 
moment as she faintly murmured, “Lilies—of the 
valley—of the shadow.” That very same day had 
marked a catastrophe which was to plunge her country 
into war; the twilight of her life came at the dawn of 
a new national era, but this was unknown to her. 

On the following day a general call for prayer was 
sent out, and Willard Hall in the Temple was filled 




FRANCES E. WILLARD 


255 


with a vast throng whose hearts cried as one heart, 
“Spare her, O God, if it is Thy will.” That night she 
was very restless and her spasmodic remarks were in¬ 
coherent: “He giveth His beloved sleep, but, oh, some¬ 
times He is a long time doing it. . . . Oh, let me go 
away, let me be in peace; I am so safe with Him.” At 
times she suffered intense pain; but dissolution itself 
was mercifully painless. Just before she became uncon¬ 
scious, about midday on February 17, the thin white 
hand, which had wrought a magic hush on countless 
audiences, was feebly raised in an attempt to point 
upward. Perhaps her vanishing consciousness was en¬ 
deavoring for the last time to visualize those lofty 
summits which she had striven so hard to reach through 
all the weary but still satisfying years. Then suddenly, 
in a final gleam of mental perception, those incredibly 
distant heights drew nearer—were at hand—she stood 
upon them at last! The grief-stricken friends around 
her bed listened with strained intensity to her dying 
utterance: “How beautiful it is to be with God,” she 
said, in a tone of deepest contentment. Twelve hours 
later, almost exactly at midnight, the blue eyes looked 
serenely toward heaven, she breathed a few tired sighs 
—and then she tested the validity of her last words. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Adams, E. C., & Foster, W. D., Heroines of Modern Prog¬ 
ress. Sturgis & Walton Co., New York, 1913. 
Anthony, Katharine, Margaret Fuller. Harcourt, Brace 
& Howe, New York, 1920. 

Bradford, Gamaliel, Portraits of American Women . 
Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, 1919. 




256 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Gordon, Anna A., The Beautiful Life of Frances E. Willard. 
Woman’s Temperance Publication Association, Chicago, 
1898. 

Harper, Ida Husted, Life and Works of Susan B. Anthony. 
Three volumes. Bowen-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1899- 
1908. 

Strachey, Rachel, Frances Willard, Her Life and Work. 
Fleming H. Revell Co., New York, 1913. 

Willard, Frances E., A Wheel Within a Wheel. How I 
Learned to Ride the Bicycle. Hutchinson & Co., London, 
1895; A Woman of the Century [By Miss Willard and 
a corps of women]. Charles Wells Moulton, Buffalo, 
1 893 > Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an 
American Woman. Woman’s Temperance Publication 
Association, Chicago, 1889; How to Win. A Book for 
Girls. Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1886; Woman and 
Temperance. Park Publishing Co., Hartford, 1884. 

Wittenmyer, Mrs. Annie, History of the Womans Tem¬ 
perance Crusade. Philadelphia, 1878. 




JAMES J. HILL 

I 

Once upon a time, by one of those singular coinci¬ 
dences that determine the fate of empires and individ¬ 
uals no less frequently than the denouement of fairy 
stories, a chance meeting brought together for the first 
time two persons who were destined to wave more 
potent wands than any fairies ever waved. In 1870, 
on a blustery March day, two dogsleds, each driven by 
a single man, happened to cross trails on a wind-swept 
prairie near Winnipeg, in Manitoba. One driver was 
of middle age, tall and commanding, with a face so 
distinctively aristocratic that, even though it was 
entirely surrounded by a huge fur cap and an enormous, 
icicle-bespangled beard, good breeding shone in every 
flicker of the calm, cold eyes and almost glowed—for 
it was very cold—on the large, finely shaped nose. The 
other was a man still barely past thirty, though his 
spade-shaped beard, which completely concealed his 
receding chin and his heavy, projecting teeth, made him 
appear somewhat older on first view. His figure was 
short, squat and square; his face was stolid and ple¬ 
beian, yet undoubtedly powerful. In every physical 
respect, save for his beard, he differed almost absolutely 
from the older man. 

But, after all, the difference was mainly external, for 
the aristocratic man was Donald A. Smith, who was 

257 


258 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


fated to control the political and economic destiny of 
Canada for more than thirty years to come. During 
those years he bounded like an India-rubber ball from 
one political party to another, as each happened to suit 
or to oppose his own schemes; he conferred upon his 
country the benefit of building the Canadian Pacific 
Railroad by using every form of political and financial 
extortion; he won thereby a great fortune and an ever¬ 
lasting renown—at any rate, lasting enough so that he 
was dubbed Lord Strathcona, and became one of 
Queen Victoria’s favorites; and he brought his life to 
a fitting close by devoting a large part of his hard- 
earned wealth to the organization and equipment of 
Lord Strathcona’s Horse, which performed heroic 
deeds in helping to save England from destruction at 
the hands of atrocious Boers. 

As for the young man—“I liked him then,” said 
Smith, some twenty-five years later, “and I never 
had reason to change my opinion.” 

The young man was James J. Hill. 


II 

Fairy stories have been mentioned; and Hill’s life, 
indeed, reads like one. For surely the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury was a fairyland ruled by a number of godmothers, 
each of whom became more powerful than her prede¬ 
cessor. Godmother Agrarianism was forced, however 
slowly and reluctantly, to abdicate rather early in the 
century by a prodigiously pregnant dame called Indus¬ 
trial Revolution, who, with the timely assistance of her 




JAMES J. HILL 


259 


husband, Imperialism, became mother to a number of 
lusty youngsters: Urbanism, Suburbanism, Competi¬ 
tion and finally Consolidation—more familiarly known 
as Dame Trust or Dame Monopoly—who still main¬ 
tains her rule very successfully, in spite of the efforts of 
a doddering old dwarf called Governmental Regula¬ 
tion. But, of course, every fairy land has its quota of 
wicked persons and several of them—for example, 
the triplets, Strike, Labor Union and Socialism; a frail 
but curiously long-lived elf named Democracy; and a 
vile, pimple-faced gnome called Anarchy—caused the 
good fairies to experience some very anxious moments. 
As for James J. Hill, he fits in quite nicely in the 
role of Cinderella: Poverty was the wicked stepmother, 
Jay Gould and E. H. Harriman were the ugly step¬ 
sisters; but a lovely prince, known variously as Luck, 
Opportunity, Chance or Fortune, at last fitted the glass 
slipper on the foot of his bride and carried her off in 
triumph. But perhaps this is anticipating too much; it 
is time to look at some of the details that compose this 
romantic portrait. 

To his biographer James Jerome Hill gave a three¬ 
fold injunction to execute in outlining his life: “Make 
it plain and simple and true”; and the biographer ful¬ 
filled the first and second stipulations in an eminently 
satisfactory manner. Hill’s youth, according to this 
record, not merely indexed his future; it included those 
qualities and episodes so dear to the hearts of all good 
Americans when they turn for inspiration, as they so 
frequently do, to the lives of their national heroes. 
He was a “self-made” man; he was reared in poverty— 
better still, in a log cabin. Hie was, to be sure, a 




26 o 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


foreigner—born near Guelph, Ontario, on September 
16, 1838—but eventually he redeemed and even glori¬ 
fied himself by becoming a naturalized United States 
citizen. Educated in a Quaker academy, he showed 
himself “quick to learn and incessant in application” 
of his brains to the usual elementary subjects, though 
it is true that he approached the bounds of dangerous 
unorthodoxy by acquiring some Latin, “a very little 
Greek,” algebra and geometry. It had been decided 
that he was to be a doctor; but the accidental loss of 
one eye “was as serious an obstacle to the plan as was 
the death of his father,” which occurred in 1852. Then, 
like a good story-book hero, he abandoned all thought 
of himself, clerked in a village store, and thus contrib¬ 
uted to the support of his widowed mother. At 
eighteen he began to dream those Oriental dreams that 
troubled him all his life, and, no longer needed at home, 
he went to New York and Philadelphia; but he found 
no opportunity of embarking as a sailor, and accord¬ 
ingly journeyed west as far as St. Paul, Minnesota— 
then a mere settlement on a muddy levee, commonly 
called “Pig’s eye.” His funds gave out at this point, 
the last expedition for the Pacific Coast had departed 
just before his arrival, and he therefore settled down at 
St. Paul—for life, as it turned out. 

From 1856 to 1873, Hill forged ahead in various 
lines of activity; he progressed slowly, but at least he 
progressed. Serving as clerk to several steamboat 
companies for the first nine years, and then entering 
a partnership in a general transportation and commis¬ 
sion business, he gained precisely the sort of experience 
that was to make him such a formidable figure in the 







© Underwood & Underwood 


James J. Hill 











JAMES J. HILL 


261 


Northwest industrial world. He became thoroughly 
acquainted with the surrounding territory, and he inces¬ 
santly studied the general railroad situation; thus, step 
by step, he acquired a tremendous capacity for cram¬ 
ming and storing away in his pigeon-holed brain 
concrete facts and figures of the most complex sort. 
By 1873 he had mastered an enormous amount of 
practical knowledge, gained a considerable fortune, and 
won a wife. At the Merchants’ Hotel in St. Paul 
where he lived, he fell in love with a waitress, Mary 
Theresa Mehegan, the daughter of an Irish “tailor in 
a small way” ; she was “a sensible, high-principled girl,” 
who eventually bore him ten children—seven daughters 
and three sons. His health during these years was 
excellent, in fact, and he “was fond of saying that at 
the time of his marriage he weighed but 135 pounds 
and had a waist measure of 29 inches.” 

Ill 

The year 1873 was the pivotal year of Hill’s life. 
Before, he had been plain “Jim Hill,” a trustworthy, 
hard-working, successful business man, of some local 
importance; afterward, within the space of thirty years, 
he leapt into the position of almost absolute dictator of 
the economic and political welfare of the Northwest. 
The evolution of American industrial development 
reached its peak in his personality; inexplicable destiny 
had decided that he was the man who should forge the 
last link in the chain of events that led to the complete 
subjugation and settlement of the last virgin territory 
in the United States; the long, slow process of mechani- 




262 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


zation of nature—and man—in the greatest nation of 
the Western World culminated in him. It may not be 
possible to determine precisely how this came about; 
how, by what curious shifts of fortune, by what odd 
combinations of chance and opportunism, he attained 
this eminence; but some facts, at least, are fairly 
clear. 

For several decades prior to 1873, the United States 
had been railroad-crazy. Through the connivance of 
wealthy individuals and the national government, in¬ 
cluding the Supreme Court—for the wealthy individ¬ 
uals, of whom the most representative specimen was 
Roscoe Conkling, were generally Senators who pos¬ 
sessed a two-fold power: the power that came from 
serving as counsel for different corporations, and the 
power of confirming presidential nominees to the 
Supreme Court—judicial decisions were given which 
showed an ever-increasing tendency to expedite the 
growth of great corporate enterprises. Such a state of 
affairs may have been morally justifiable and even 
legally impeccable; at all events, it was the state of 
affairs. As a result, huge railroad systems had come 
into being chiefly by the aid of large subsidies, and by 
grants of territorial right-of-way. In the end, expan¬ 
sion became too rapid and the whole mushroom growth 
collapsed in the unparalleled panic of 1873. Corporate 
structures that had seemed as firmly founded as the 
Pyramids came tumbling down like a house of cards; 
and out of this mass of debris Hill—whose magic 
touch always turned panics into veritable bonanzas— 
extracted the materials which enabled him to build up 
his own enormous fortune. 




JAMES J. HILL 


263 


Among the lesser railroads that crashed to ruin in 
that national catastrophe was the St. Paul & Pacific 
—a system that included only some five hundred miles 
of track, but one that held a keystone position; for it 
was a potential bond that might connect the great 
expanse of Canadian territory centering in Winnipeg 
with the outside world. Indeed, it was more than this; 
for Donald A. Smith was already dreaming dreams of 
the time when he was to be given fifty million acres 
of land and a subsidy of $30,000,000 for the building 
of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and James J. Hill was 
seeing visions of the time when he was to own a parallel 
two thousand mile line, stretching from St. Paul to 
Seattle. With all of Southwestern Canada and all 
of the Northwestern States included in the grip of 
these twin lines of steel; with Smith and Hill in mutual 
agreement that there should be no competition between 
the two systems, inasmuch as they were mutually inter¬ 
dependent; these two railroads would have a strangle 
hold upon the industrial development of that magnifi¬ 
cent expanse of land. Surely, surely, there was some¬ 
thing providential in that apparently fortuitous meeting 
on a wintry prairie in March, 1870. 

In order that these dreams and visions might be ful¬ 
filled, certain things were necessary: daring, initiative, 
energy; and—more concretely—money, prescient 
information, and settlers for the virgin territory. 
Whether Smith and Hill had foreseen all this, or 
whether they were mere opportunists who struck when 
the iron was hot, can never be determined; the impor¬ 
tant fact remains that such were the means employed. 

From 1873 until he finally got control of the St. Paul 




STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


264 

& Pacific, Hill was literally possessed by the possibil¬ 
ities that lay in that road. “He used to talk it at all 
times. He sat in the old club house holding Kittson 
[one of his partners] in a corner and boring the plan 
into him with a threatening forefinger. He ate and 
drank and slept with it.” Nor was this strange; for, 
though the St. Paul & Pacific was contemptuously 
referred to as “two streaks of rust and the right of 
way,” its latent assets were enormous. In fact, its 
total valuation—a valuation that included over two 
million acres of land—was conservatively estimated 
at $20,000,000, and it could be bought for less than 
$7,000,000. In other words, here was a property 
obtainable for about thirty cents on a dollar. Not a 
bad bargain, certainly; but the Dutch burghers and 
bankers of Amsterdam who, years previously, had paid 
over $13,000,000 for the railroad knew only that, when 
it became bankrupt, their investment had been cut in 
half—they could not understand the potentialities of 
the investment, for the excellent reason that the persons 
who were in control of the road had carefully kept all 
such knowledge from reaching their ears. 

But there were others who did know these facts. 
What was more, Hill knew that they knew; and that 
was why he continued to shake his forefinger more 
insistently than ever in the faces of Kittson and Smith. 
The directors of the Chicago & Northwestern and the 
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul were not blind, and, 
almost bankrupt though they were, they loomed omi¬ 
nously in the foreground. But the genius of Hill not 
merely loomed—it became feverishly, yet astutely 
active. In consequence, so his biographer states with 





JAMES J. HILL 


265 


admirable candor, these two roads “were played 
judiciously against each other during this time by Mr. 
Hill, who had the confidence of both. Each was 
pacified by the assurance that the other should have 
no part in the new undertaking.” Eventually, the 
inevitable happened: superior genius completely de¬ 
feated inferior talent. Through a maze of intricately 
tangled legalistic proceedings, this fact finally emerged: 
Hill, Smith, George Stephen (a wealthy cousin of 
Smith’s) and Kittson acquired the defaulted bonds of 
the St. Paul & Pacific for less than $7,000,000—barely 
one-third of their actual value. Incidentally, they were 
required to deposit only $280,000 to clinch the bargain; 
they were “allowed to turn in receiver’s debentures and 
bonds as payment for the purchase price.” In May, 
1879, the good work was completed: the Hill coterie 
organized the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Rail¬ 
road Company for the express purpose of buying the 
St. Paul and Pacific under foreclosure—they desired, 
above all else, to form a stabilized combination of the 
interlocking United States and Canadian lines and get 
them entirely out of the court’s jurisdiction into abso¬ 
lutely private possession. In June the decree of fore¬ 
closure was granted, and within a year Hill and his 
satellites “were already out of the woods so far as the 
St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba was concerned”, his 
biographer remarks; but he does not explain too clearly 
how this fortunate result was obtained. The chief 
reason was this: immediately after the foreclosure took 
place, Hill & Co. sold most of the land property of the 
railroad for over $13,000,000. No wonder they smiled 
sweetly at each other in the intimacies of their business 





266 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


meetings; no wonder, too, that the “grasping” Dutch 
bondholders, who had so mercilessly insisted that the 
unheard-of sum of $280,000 should be advanced prior 
to the sale, gnashed their teeth in impotent anger when 
they discovered how neatly they had been tricked; and 
the imagination flounders at the mere thought of their 
emotional condition, when, twenty-seven years later, 
they learnt that Hill and his partners had divided 
between them, as the spoils of this enterprise, the sum 
of $407,000,000. 

IV 

Although Hill had now only laid the foundation 
of his subsequent dazzling career as “Empire-Builder”, 
the stupendous structure that he was to erect is, to a 
large degree, a matter of more interest to the economist 
and historian than to the biographer. One cannot 
escape noticing, in the evolution of his life, what one 
almost always notes in the progress of towering finan¬ 
cial magnates: with their steady advance toward an 
ever-growing wealth, power and fame, there is a corre¬ 
sponding diminution of intimately personal details and 
episodes. In proportion as they become larger and 
grander, in like proportion do their personalities 
shrink into a vaguer and vaguer remoteness. Only a 
comparatively few persons—and some of them still live 
—could, if they chose, speak the words that would be 
the Open Sesame to the carefully veiled recesses and 
winding labyrinths which conceal so much that forms 
a part of the cavernous depth and breadth of Hill’s vol¬ 
canic personality; but their lips have been, and will 
doubtless continue to be, conveniently dumb, It hap- 




JAMES J. HILL 


267 


pens, however, that the terrific forces which were sub¬ 
merged in that volcano at times became uncontrollable, 
rumbled, and burst forth in all their wild fury; and 
the illumination that accompanied those rare explosions 
made the interior as light as day for a brief instant. 
Besides, there were a few unguarded chinks and crev¬ 
ices in its vast surface, through which the patient ex¬ 
plorer, lying in wait, could peep and get a fairly good 
glimpse of the volcano in its quiet moments. 

In all the multiplicity of interests that occupied Hill 
from his first emergence into a recognized position of 
power, until his final retirement at the height of his 
astonishing success, two major activities dominated the 
host of his lesser works. Slowly, steadily, with im¬ 
ponderable determination and inflexible persistence, he 
ranged ahead, organizing and maturing railroad com¬ 
binations that pointed invariably toward the complete 
control of the entire Northwest. Side by side with 
this ideal, he nourished another that was even greater: 
the domination of the Northwest was, in his mind, but 
the steppingstone toward a rule over the immeasurable 
resources of Oriental commerce. Everything in his 
life was henceforth subsidiary to these two closely 
interlinked ideals. As he advanced from one outpost 
to another, he left the abandoned territory so perfectly 
organized that there was nothing left for any inter¬ 
loping intruders to seize—his progressive control had 
attained such a smooth yet deadly momentum that it 
crushed all opposition. If this policy was ruthless, it 
was merely the outgrowth of a ruthless theory evolved 
in a ruthless century: the theory that the rights of 
property overshadow the rights of individuals—except 


1 





268 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


for a very few persons, such as James J. Hill, who had 
been providentially picked to control property rights. 
Whatever and whoever stood in Hill’s path must stand 
aside. “I am a firm believer,” he once remarked, “in 
all natural laws . . . and the law of the survival of the 
fittest is a natural law.” If the corpses of any com¬ 
peting concerns, smashed beneath his economic Jugger¬ 
naut, showed faint signs of reviving, he was wont to 
say, with grim humor, “If anything should occur to 
give them the breath of life, we will be around at the 
christening.” The greatest paradox of the nineteenth 
century was that it gave birth to twins who had no 
family resemblance whatever—an uncompromisingly 
merciless economic creed, and a piously lachrymose 
humanitarian creed—and the paradox becomes even 
more paradoxical when one reflects that both were 
suckled at the same breast and grew with equal rapidity, 
just as good twins should. But only the first of the 
two had much interest for Hill. 

By 1893 his dreams had come true to the extent that 
the Great Northern and the Canadian Pacific roads 
were completed, and were operating mutually “against 
Gould’s Union Pacific.” But the dreams had not been 
wholly without nightmare elements. For instance, 
when the parent branch of the Great Northern—the 
St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba—began to function 
in 1879, Hill and his gang needed money. The gang 
strongly advocated the “watering” of the road’s stock 
to the extent of $25,000,000; but Hill, always cau¬ 
tiously cunning, objected and stuck out for a paltry 
$5,000,000. “Water!” he snorted. “We’ve let in 
the whole of Lake Michigan already!” The cryptic 




JAMES J. HILL 


269 


remark remains cryptic; but a compromise of $15,000,- 
000 was finally agreed upon. As the Great Northern 
wound snakily westward, crawling over wide plains, 
bridging great rivers, and eating into the vitals of 
lofty mountains, special laws and franchises had been 
required—and granted—for the territory over which 
it extended; and in this connection a curious fact must 
be noted. In 1883 the Minnesota Legislature ap¬ 
pointed a committee to investigate persistent charges 
that its members had been deluged with bribe money 
for the purpose of inducing them to vote for certain 
laws that were indispensable for the successful com¬ 
pletion of the Great Northern; and, while it was not 
definitely shown that Hill was directly involved in the 
business, the committee’s report proved that an appall¬ 
ing amount of corruption, in the form of lobbying and 
bribery by railroad interests, was rampant. Whatever 
Hill’s relation to this affair may have been, his official 
biography is authority for a series of interesting admis¬ 
sions. Hill worked hand in hand with the Democratic 
bosses in 1884 for the nomination and election of 
Cleveland, and “his support contributed no little to that 
nomination and election . . ; and Hill and Cleveland 

later became close personal friends—so close, in fact, 
that “After Mr. Cleveland’s election the patronage of 
the Northwest was turned over substantially to two 
men in St. Paul who were staunch Democrats and good 
friends of Mr. Hill.” In the light of these events, one 
is not surprised to learn that Cleveland once said, “Mr. 
Hill is one of the most remarkable men I have 
seen . . .” and that Hill was an ardent supporter of 
Cleveland in his stand against the free silver “ghost 





270 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


dancers”—so very ardent that in August, 1896, Hill 
personally piloted Mark Hanna from one financier to 
another in Wall Street, gave him his own guarantee for 
$5,000,000, and finished a good day’s work by saying 
to the delighted Mark, “Should you need more look in 
on me at St. Paul.” In later years, “at any time the 
mention of the ex-president’s name would stir Mr. Hill 
and send him off on a train of musing but enthusiastic 
eulogy”; and, through a common love of fishing, their 
friendship grew into delectable intimacy at Hill’s 
salmon preserve in Labrador. 

Concerning one fact, however, there is no possible 
shadow of doubt. Between 1880 and 1883, Hill was 
using the accumulated surplus funds of the St. Paul, 
Minnesota & Manitoba—funds belonging to its stock¬ 
holders—for the expansion of that road into the Great 
Northern; in plain language, he borrowed money, 
without troubling to pay interest, from his company’s 
treasury. Had this daring device failed—had the rail¬ 
road gone on the rocks—it is at least possible that the 
doors of some Minnesota penitentiary would have 
closed upon him. But the device, while admittedly 
“not usual,” was, we are told, “morally unassailable”; 
and anyhow it was “justified by the event.” The 
“extraordinary but admirable confidence” of his stock¬ 
holders, who had naturally “expected these surplus 
profits to be distributed”, was in the end rewarded; and 
Hill, instead of donning a convict’s garb, was richer 
by several millions. With this episode in mind, one 
feels very sympathetic toward his point of view con¬ 
cerning the honesty of his employees—a point of view 
made crystal clear in his own dictum: “If there is a 




JAMES J. HILL 


271 


shadow of suspicion attached to them, discharge them 
at once. That . . . will set a good example to others 
in the future.” Some of his employees, it is clear, 
had tried to profit by following one notably good 
example of the not very remote past. 

But, unfortunately for Hill, all men were not so 
friendly as Cleveland nor so lenient as his own stock¬ 
holders. There, confronting him at every step of his 
advance, was the specter of Jay Gould with his vice- 
like clutch on the Union Pacific, and indeed on the 
whole Northwest through his control of its representa¬ 
tives in Washington. In order that the infant Great 
Northern might cross the regions of Dakota and 
Montana, a special charter, authorizing its construc¬ 
tion through the Indian reservations therein, was 
indispensable; and Gould, by means of a powerful lobby 
at Washington, prevented the passage of the charter 
for a time—but only for a time. One day, as he sat 
in his New York office, the door burst open and in 
rushed a menacing figure: a veritable gorilla of a man, 
with an abnormally long torso and abnormally short 
legs, with a prodigiously heavy chest and neck, with 
thick, sinewy arms, and limbs like granite columns. 
The great, dome-like head shook so vigorously that the 
long, tangled iron-gray hair and the bristling iron- 
gray beard tossed violently about; the one good eye 
blazed like a living coal, until it seemed to bore and 
burn its way straight to the center of Gould’s weazened 
soul, and even the sightless eye seemed to show a dull 
glimmer. Then the beard burst asunder, the thick lips 
snarled back, and from between the huge teeth there 
came a succession of hoarse, growling barks that 




272 


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finally shaped themselves into these snapping ejacula¬ 
tions: “You’ve played the - hog in this matter 

just as long as you’re going to be permitted. Unless 

you call off your - Washington bushwackers at 

once . . . I’ll tear down the whole-business about 

your ears. . . . I’ll go to Washington and camp there 
until I nail every one of your crooks to the doors of 

the Capitol by their-ears. I’ll . . But Mr. 

Gould had heard enough; and in an amazingly short 
space of time the dirt in the Indian reservations was 
flying—legally flying—in every direction. 

It is true that, as the dirt flew about, beauty fled 
before it; but what did it matter? Was Hill engaged 
in a poetic enterprise? It seems not, for to his chief 
engineer he gave this order: “We don’t care enough 
about Rocky Mountain scenery to spend a large sum of 
money in developing it. . . . What we want is the best 
possible line, shortest distance, lowest grades, and least 
curvature that we can build between the points to be 
covered.” As the clangor and turmoil of modern 
progress disrupted the brooding quiet of those hitherto 
undisturbed sylvan spaces, one fancies that the grim 
ghost of Leatherstocking, jealously guarding the last 
large section of virgin solitude in the United States, 
frowned menacingly; but Hill had no time, and no 
desire, to worry about the private concerns of ghosts. 

Nevertheless, he was constantly forced, willy-nilly, 
to worry about the concerns and actions of men. Late 
in 1891, the settlers in the Red River Valley of North 
Dakota were thunderstruck upon hearing that the 
Great Northern Railroad Company had issued an edict 
commanding them to vacate that section of territory, 









JAMES J. HILL 


273 


because, so it was claimed, the territory belonged to the 
railroad. The claim had its origin in this manner: in 
1884 Hill had demanded that the Red River lands 
should be ceded to him, basing his demand upon an act 
of Congress which, in 1857, had awarded those lands 
to a railroad that had since become insolvent. In the 
intervening years the General Land Office, taking it for 
granted that the land no longer belonged to the defunct 
railroad, had given full title of possession to the settlers 
—and now, in 1884, Hill was demanding these lands 
as his rightful due. After seven years of legal battling, 
the Supreme Court decided that the lands did, indeed, 
belong to Hill; hence the 1891 edict. The settlers at 
once appealed to Congress, which considerately passed 
an act permitting the Great Northern to choose, as a 
substitute, an equal area of land, that, like the relin¬ 
quished Red River land, must be non-mineral. And 
this was precisely what Hill had hoped for; he was 
thus enabled to select the most valuable timber lands 
in Montana, Idaho and Washington. Shortly after¬ 
ward, an interesting discovery was made: rich mineral 
deposits underlay a large part of the timber. This was 
certainly very lucky; and Hill was so pleased with the 
Commissioner of the Land Office—through whose wise 
forethought the timber-and-mineral territory came into 
Hill’s grip—that he showed his gratitude by permitting 
the Montana Legislature to send the Commissioner to 
the United States Senate. When, in a period of rail¬ 
road labor trouble, some of his own men went on strike, 
he fumed with impotent rage at first; then the crafti¬ 
ness born of intimate dealings with crafty men returned, 
and he consented to arbitrate. His own statement 




274 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


shows what a famous victory the strikers gained: “The 
newspaper reports indicate that the men won . . . and 
this we have been careful not to contradict.” 

With the control, completion and operation of the 
Great Northern so satisfactorily compassed by 1893, 
Hill might conceivably have eased up on his labors; 
but any form of ease was, to his mind, the abomination 
of abominations—and besides, there were mighty rail¬ 
road systems still to be grabbed up with the omni¬ 
present help of the law. It so happened, very con¬ 
veniently for Hill’s schemes, that his greatest com¬ 
petitor—the parallel Northern Pacific—went into a 
receivership only six months after the inauguration of 
the Great Northern; in all probability, there would 
soon be another christening party. There was. The 
despairing owners of the Northern Pacific, in desperate 
need of a supreme rehabilitator of decrepit properties, 
looked around until they found a past master in that 
art—J. Pierpont Morgan. Hill and Morgan, being 
birds of a feather, had flocked together more than once 
already; and henceforth they were to twitter on the 
same branch for the rest of their lives. In a very little 
time they had evolved this partnership plan: the Great 
Northern was to assume the financial liabilities of the 
Northern Pacific, and as a fitting reward was to re¬ 
ceive half of its capital stock. When this became 
known, a clamor arose—monopoly, supremely able 
successor to competition, was growing more and more 
suspect. Certain state laws had already been passed, 
forbidding the consolidation of parallel lines; and in 
1896 the Supreme Court actually handed down a de¬ 
cision sustaining these laws. The enemies of Hill and 




JAMES J. HILL 


275 


Morgan chuckled, and the farmers living on the lands 
included between these two roads breathed easier; but 
—there are laws—and laws, as Hill was thoroughly 
aware. Requesting those concerned with him in the 
affair “to avoid for the present any discussion of the 
proposed unification of interests”, he concocted a plan 
which would be lawfully unlawful, and therefore satis¬ 
factory in every way. In place of the principle of joint 
ownership by corporations, he substituted the principle 
of joint ownership by individuals. In other words, 
Hill and Morgan, each “acting” for the stockholders 
in their respective corporations, went blithely ahead 
just as though nothing had happened—as indeed 
nothing had, except the complete attainment of their 
desires and the strengthening of the bond of friendship 
between them. 

Very shortly that bond was to be made even more 
firm by their contest with a common foe. Suddenly, 
almost without warning, a new comet of the first mag¬ 
nitude blazed a fiery trail across the railroad firma¬ 
ment. In 1897 E. H. Harriman became the dominat¬ 
ing force in the management of the long tottering 
Union Pacific and it tottered no more. The mere fact 
that the Hill and Harriman systems overlapped was 
sufficient evidence that, pending an occasionalbreathless 
truce, these two worthy antagonists would be con¬ 
tinually crossing swords. The first skirmish, which 
proved to be but a prelude to what was perhaps the 
most notorious battle between financial giants that the 
world has seen, came from their common desire to 
possess the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy the channel 
through which lay access to Chicago, the Great Lake 




27 6 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


regions, and the cotton fields of the South. Both men 
naturally knew these facts, fully appreciated the magni¬ 
tude of the prize, and worked with equal zeal to win it; 
but Hill worked to more purpose. To be sure, Harri- 
man drew first blood by purchasing a percentage of the 
Burlington stock late in 1900; but he did not buy 
enough to ensure a victory. Hill merely winced at the 
scratch, and by a rapid and skillful thrust won the first 
bout. In March, 1901, he bought out the Burlington, 
so surreptitiously that Harriman never suspected his 
danger until it was too late. 

But Harriman, temporarily worsted, was stirred as 
he had never been stirred before; and he at once deliv¬ 
ered a counterthrust so entirely unsuspected and so 
deadly in its aim that Hill was almost taken unawares 
—almost, but not quite. In March, 1901, Harriman 
did not have a cent’s worth of Northern Pacific stock; 
by the first of May he owned $78,000,000 of the total 
$150,000,000 capitalization of the Northern Pacific. 
Hill, in Seattle, had noticed with alarm the sales of 
enormous quantities of this stock, and sniffed trouble 
without being sure as to where the precise source of the 
trouble lay. He at once secured a special train and 
unlimited right of way to St. Paul; arriving there, after 
making the fastest run from the Pacific to the Missis¬ 
sippi that had ever been made, he continued more 
slowly—he was now on a foreign system—to New 
York, which he reached on May 3. The situation was 
made clear to him, and on the next day he sent a cable¬ 
gram to Morgan, in Italy, explaining the crisis in their 
affairs, and urging the immediate purchase of 150,000 
shares of common stock as the only possible means of 




JAMES J. HILL 


277 


preventing disaster. On May 5 Morgan’s urgent con¬ 
sent came—for, as he later explained, he felt “morally 
responsible for its management”—and within two days 
the Hill-Morgan forces had won; or won to the extent 
that Harriman saw his fight was lost. On the ninth the 
well-known panic broke: Northern Pacific common 
soared to $1,000 per share, while other standard 
securities declined to half of their intrinsic value— 
United States Steel, for instance, sank from 46 to 24. 
In the terrific orgy of buying and selling that was pre¬ 
cipitated by this private battle between three men, 
multitudes of other men—brokers, speculators, and 
thousands of honest investors—were swept to ruin. 
“What sort of a man is this Hill?” a widow, whose 
whole fortune was invested in his possessions, once 
asked of a friend. “He is the sort of man to whom a 
single share of stock owned by a widow, would be just 
as sacred as the possessions of the greatest millionaire 
stockholder in his system,” was the reply. 

After the storm had cleared away, it was discovered 
that, so far as the principals were concerned, the situa¬ 
tion was practically unchanged. But the public was 
rather perturbed; it did not seem quite right, somehow, 
that the clashing interests of three multi-millionaires 
should cause a tempest that had utterly obliterated the 
scant savings of a mass of people. Obviously, there¬ 
fore, some explanation was advisable; and Hill mag¬ 
nanimously complied by passing the buck. When he 
heard of Harriman’s trick, he gained much sympathy 
by a proper display of righteous indignation. We learn 
that his face paled to the temples with passion; and, 
as his hands clutched and unclutched, his harsh voice 




278 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


burst out: “It is the greatest outrage of modern times. 
Thousands of people have been ruined, and needlessly, 
by the greed of a small group of men. ... I took no 
part in this disgraceful thing. . . . Nothing could have 
tempted me to take part in the affair. Praise God, 
I’ve no pockets in my shroud.” Almost at the same 
time, the gentleman who had pockets in his shroud 
was privately remarking, “Anyhow, he calls me ‘Ed.’ ”, 
and within two months “Ed.” was a member on the 
board of directors of Hill’s Burlington. 

Three years later, to be sure, Hill and Harriman 
engaged in another legal tilt over the distribution of 
the assets of the Northern Securities Company— a con¬ 
cern organized chiefly by Hill and Morgan for the 
purpose of preventing any other public scandals such 
as the Northern Pacific affair had been. The third 
member of importance was, one is pleased to note, no 
less a person than “Ed.” But in 1904 the Supreme 
Court handed down decisions dissolving the new com¬ 
pany, and directing Harriman to accept a loss in the 
shape of a portion of depreciated Great Northern 
stock. These two actions, it was commonly believed, 
were equally unfavorable to Hill and Harriman—how 
pleasant it was to reflect that two of the country’s 
wealthiest men had felt the sharp teeth of the law! 
But shortly—such are the providential workings of the 
law!—Harriman sold his Great Northern stock for a 
net profit of $58,000,000; as for Hill, let him speak 
for himself. “So the Northern Securities Company 
went out of business. What has been the result? 
What is the difference? To the owners of the prop¬ 
erties., merely the inconvenience of holding two certifi- 




JAMES J. HILL 


279 


cates of stock of different colors instead of one, and of 
keeping track of two different sets of securities.” Im¬ 
mediately after Hill had heard of this “legal defeat”, 
he waved his hand toward a map of the United States 
that hung in his office and boasted to a friend: “I’ve 
made my mark on the surface of the earth, and they 
can’t wipe it out!” 

On Harriman’s death in 1909, Hill commented: 
“His properties are in fine shape. ... I have done a 
good deal of business with him, and some of it was 
pretty strenuous at times, but we were good personal 
friends throughout. . . . Perhaps he is better off. I 
believe he is happy now.” 


V 

At last, in 1907, Hill resigned as President of the 
Great Northern and his son Louis reigned in his stead. 
The great spiderweb system of railroads had been so 
indissolubly spun, and had snared so many flies for the 
monstrous spinner to suck dry, that, bloated and 
swollen to enormous proportions, he had lost his lust 
for further conquests. Amazing wealth, power and 
fame were his; with so many ideals more than attained, 
he had begun to grow tired of the whole business. No 
longer could his long over-burdened mind retain the 
appalling mass of intricate figures and countless facts 
it had once so hungrily seized and so easily classified. 
He was growing sick of it all; so sick that he became 
more forgetful, peevish and irritable every day. Even 
when a profusion of honors was showered upon him— 
when he was the lionized hero of innumerable recep- 




28 o 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


tions, dinners, feasts and parades; when Yale conferred 
upon him the enviably esoteric distinction that is un¬ 
deniably attendant upon an honorary LL.D.; when 
Harvard gallantly sustained its ancient traditions of 
culture by the establishment of the James J. Hill 
Professorship of Transportation—somehow or other, 
they left him curiously cold. He was tired of repeating 
to his careless underlings, for the thousandth time, that 
the hauling of empty freight cars was a disgrace and a 
sin; tired of prodding and nagging at mediocre or— 
unspeakable outrage!—traitorous servants of his 
interests. 

All this inward unrest signified that something more 
than encroaching old age was wearing him down. And 
that something seems to have been this: the greatest 
ideal of all—the control of Oriental commerce—had 
proved unattainable. Popular disapproval had at last 
forced those in power to forbid railroad companies the 
opportunity of making competitive export rates; so it 
had come about that Hill's Great Northern Steamship 
Company, organized in 1900 to make real his dream 
of the economic conquest of Asia, had become almost 
worthless within five years. With it had perished 
something far more important—his grandiose scheme 
of a revolutionized world commerce. For the first 
time, he, James J. Hill, the “Napoleon of Railroads’’, 
had actually been defeated! Was it —could it be pos¬ 
sible that there were insuperable forces to which he 
must bow? Apparently there were; and this realiza¬ 
tion sapped his surpassing energy and extinguished his 
flaming ambition. The heights to which that energy 
and ambition had attained are made clear by this state- 





JAMES J. HILL 


281 


ment, published as an ordinary newspaper announce¬ 
ment in October, 1906 : “James J. Hill has completed 
a deal with the U. S. Steel Co. for the sale of over 
7,000,000 tons of iron ore in Minnesota. This sale 
will yield between $450,000,000 and $600,000,000 
to the Great Northern.” After this final tremendous 
explosion, the great volcano died slowly, year by year, 
until it became utterly extinct. 

Occasionally, to be sure, it spluttered with a momen¬ 
tary return of the old-time fury. As old age drew on, 
his convulsive irritability began to manifest itself in 
childish outbursts of rage. Once a clerk in his office— 
one Charles Swinburne Spittles—did something that 
aroused his anger. Glaring ferociously into the un¬ 
fortunate man’s face—an owlish face, with a beetling 
brow, a preposterously projecting hooked nose, and a 
cutaway chin—he bellowed: “Spittles, I don’t like your 
name and I don’t like your face; you’re fired!” and then 
hurled himself out of the room. In a flash, Spittles’s 
superior rushed up and said: “From now on, Spittles, 
your name will be Charles Swinburne only, and when 
Hill comes into the room, turn your face to the wall! ,} 
In a short time Hill was bestowing high praise upon 
an industrious new clerk, with a pleasantly poetic name 
and a Cheshire Cat countenance. At another time, 
having suddenly become enraged at poor telephone 
service, he tore the instrument from the wall, threw 
it into the back yard, and then stamped and kicked it 
into pieces. 

So he wisely laid most of his burdens down in 1907, 
and tried to enjoy life. But life had so unconsciously 
and yet so inevitably become such a drab procession of 




282 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


facts and figures, of statistics and stocks, that he found 
his capacity for enjoyment was not large. His New 
York mansion, and his massive colonial edifice on a 
height of St. Paul, built according to the most modern 
standards of excellence in plumbing, heating and light¬ 
ing, and also graced with priceless jewels, rugs, china 
and paintings “of the best-accepted standards of the 
time”—these things were all pleasant in their way; but, 
gazing once at the paintings in his gallery, he sighed 
to a friend, “Ah, it was a great pleasure to get those 
pictures together, one of the greatest of my life. But 
it’s all gone now.” Still, curiously enough, the jewels 
never wholly lost their attraction; and there were other 
things that were attractive, too. What esthetic satis¬ 
faction he could experience while strolling on his model 
stock farm among his herds of blooded cattle, whose 
pedigrees and names he knew so perfectly; how gratify¬ 
ing it was to do “pure missionary work” by delivering 
hundreds of lectures to schools, state fairs and farm¬ 
ers’ meetings, on the necessity of conserving and de¬ 
veloping natural resources, and of forever practising, 
in every field of endeavor, his own inclusive creed: 
“Work, hard work, intelligent work, and then some 
more work”! The greatest of follies, he reiterated to 
his audiences, was the folly of being lazy and enjoying 
life; work was a privilege for which they should be duly 
grateful; and his hearers collectively nodded their 
heads and reflected that the speaker had dispensed that 
privilege as widely and as unselfishly as any man of his 
time. Especially were they pleased at the profound 
scope of his observations: “The greatest need of the 




JAMES J. HILL 


283 


coming era will be pay-rolls” ; “In my opinion there are 
good and bad men in all the walks of life”; “The Bible 
will be the measure of the mental growth of this re¬ 
public and of the prosperity of our nation.” Upon 
reading such passages as these, one can easily compre¬ 
hend why it was that Hill always maintained that the 
best model of English style was “Pilgrim’s Progress” 
—though it is true that he was never able to appreciate 
Browning. 

Then, too, he could experience the pleasure of being 
generous. When Hill was lauded for the gifts he made 
to different institutions, he would show a praiseworthy 
modesty and shyness; eventually he would cover his 
confusion by offering an economic explanation. 
“Look,” he would say, “at the millions of foreigners 
pouring into this country to whom the Roman Catholic 
Church represents the only authority that they either 
fear or respect. What will be their social view, their 
political action ... if that single controlling force 
should be removed?” A man whose father was a Bap¬ 
tist, whose mother was a Methodist, and whose wife 
was a Catholic, could hardly have failed to become 
infected with a few religious ideas and beliefs. One 
of these was a belief in charity; and if charitable activ¬ 
ities happened to be as much a matter of good business 
as was the improvement of his cattle, the construction 
of sound railroads, and the annihilation or absorption 
of competing lines, so much the better for charity. In 
particular, if the Catholic Church and Hill were mu¬ 
tually dependent; if the Catholic Church aided Hill 
through its stabilizing influence upon the hordes of 





284 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Northwestern immigrants, and if Hill aided the 
Catholic Church by giving those immigrants the privi¬ 
lege of abundant labor; if it had been providentially 
ordained that the fear of God and the fear of poverty 
were absolutely indispensable for the enrichment of 
Catholicism and of James J. Hill—then it was natural 
—very, very natural—that Hill should give material 
assistance to Catholicism, and that Catholicism should 
return the compliment by giving spiritual assistance to 
Hill. 

At any rate, it is a fact that, when Hill died from 
“troubles in the digestive tract,” on May 29, 1916, 
the Vicar-General of the Diocese of St. Paul comforted 
the dying hours of a man who had never openly joined 
the True Church. It is also a fact that the Catholic 
ritual for the dead was used at his funeral. On the 
whole, it seems fairly probable that Hill’s single book, 
“Highways of Progress,” will never attain the distinc¬ 
tion of being included in that rogues’ gallery of litera¬ 
ture—the Index. 

Hill has vanished; but he assuredly made his mark 
on the earth. The modern world, of which he is such 
a superb symbol—a world where mechanistic force has 
made life so efficiently comfortable and so ideally 
material, and at the same time so despairingly com¬ 
plex and so luxuriously unsatisfying—seems as indis¬ 
solubly secure to most moderns as a materialistic 
heaven seemed to their forefathers. But—troublesome 
thought!—perhaps the one is even more fantastic and 
evanescent than the other. Perhaps the gods, in a play¬ 
fully ironic mood, will one day decree that a world 
created by machinery shall by machinery be destroyed, 





JAMES J. HILL 


285 


and that the creators shall perish together with their 
creations in some cataclysmic contest. And if this 
should happen, perhaps, also, a simpler and more 
primitive state of things will follow: a society too wise 
to deify force, too serene to labor over-much, and too 
Arcadian to congregate in a barbarously competitive 
agony—a civilization so thoroughly civilized that (is 
it possible?) the old-fashioned fairies, so long banished 
from the earth, will return. Should such an hypothesis 
come true, it is even conceivable that railroads would 
no longer exist; and some citizen of that distant Utopia, 
wandering over the once more quiet plains and moun¬ 
tains of the Northwest, may experience an emotion 
blended of pity and thanksgiving when he chances to 
come upon one of the most enduring vestiges of an 
ancient, an almost forgotten story—two streaks of 
rust. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Frewen, Moreton, The Economics of James J. Hill. Living 
Age, Jan. 20, 1917. 

Hill, James J., Highways of Progress. Doubleday, Page 
& Co., New York, 1910. 

Hovey, Carl, The Life Story of J. Pierpont Morgan. Sturges 
& Walton Co., New York, 1911. 

Kennan, George, E. H. Harriman. Two volumes. Houghton, 
Mifflin Co., Boston, 1922. 

Latzke, Paul, James J. Hill. Everybody’s, April, 1907. 

Meyers, Gustavus, History of Great American Fortunes . 
Three volumes. Charles H. Kerr & Co., Chicago, 1910. 




286 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


Preston, W. T. R., Strathcona and the Making of Canada. 
McBride, Nast & Co., New York, 1915. 

Pyle, J. G., The Life of James J. Hill. Two volumes. 
Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1917. 

Willson, Beckles, The Life of Lord Strathcona. Two 
volumes. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, 1915. 




P. T. BARNUM 


On June 25, 1874, the most influential citizens of 
Bridgeport, Connecticut, gave a banquet in honor of 
their leading townsman, P. T. Barnum. It was, as suc¬ 
cessive speakers carefully reiterated, a very poor and 
inadequate way of showing the gratitude which was 
due him because of the enormous favors he had so 
generously conferred upon the city; but at least it was 
better than nothing at all. An unstinted abundance of 
good food, good liquor, and good fellowship, together 
with an absolute faith that Bridgeport was unques¬ 
tionably the finest of the many fine spots in God’s own 
country, made the occasion uncommonly felicitous. At 
its end, the participants were actually almost ready to 
agree with the sentiment expressed by a clergyman, 
who, as was fitting, made the concluding speech—in 
which, as was even more fitting, he temporarily directed 
the thoughts of his audience toward higher things. 
“What a spiritual showman he would have made!” 
the good man exclaimed; “how he would have exhibited 
the menagerie of the heart, in which ferocious beasts, 
in the form of fiery passions, play upon the soul!” 
Nor had poetry failed to grace the event in the form 
of a spirited recitative of Barnum’s many-sided accom¬ 
plishments. A member of the bench, doffing his judi¬ 
cial dignity, had poured out his admiration in these 
capering lines: 


287 


288 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


—* 

Of all demnition wonderments that swell his fame and pelf, 
There never was a demder one than Barnum is himself! 

• •••••• 

One day in Bridgeport staking out new streets across his farm, 
The next, in Windsor Castle, with Victoria on his arm; 

One day upon the prairies, looking out for freaks of nature, 
The next in Hartford, speech-making before the legislature; 
One day the Bearded Woman; next, the Mermaid with her 
comb; 

And now the Hippopotamus and now the Hippodrome. 

• •••••• 

And finally- 

But Barnum himself had been the chief speaker of 
the evening; and, since his public remarks were apt to 
be over-humble and less frank and engaging than his 
actual life had been, it may be well to take a rapid 
but inclusive glance at that life before the last stanza 
of the judge’s poem is given. 

The patriotic din of July 4, 1810, had barely died 
away when Phineas Taylor Barnum came bouncing into 
the world—or, in his own words, “made my debut ” 
The stage was the little town of Bethel, Connecticut, 
where for some twenty years the youthful actor played 
his part in episodes that fitted him excellently for his 
eventual place—the “prince of showmen.” He was 
“born and reared in an atmosphere of merriment,” 
which did not exclude a fair amount of religion, a great 
deal of close-fisted stinginess, and not a little downright 
knavery. His father, “a tailor, a farmer, and some¬ 
times a tavern-keeper,” had been granted a large share 
of all these attributes; so had his mother, although in 
her case religion and penuriousness dominated. More 





P. T. BARNUM 


289 


important than either of the parents, in the estimation 
of the son, was his maternal grandfather, Phineas 
Taylor, in whose honor he had been named: a voluble 
old fellow with a Thackerayan profile, who was a 
Universalist, a justice of the peace, a great practical 
joker, an astute inventor of profitable lotteries, and a 
lover of snuff. His paternal grandfather, however, 
was distinguished only by the fact that he had been a 
captain in the Revolutionary War. Practically all of 
these traits, together with many that were even more 
transcendent, were inherited by the youth himself, and 
he always gloried in his lineage. 

While still at a tender age, he began to demonstrate 
his kinship in various ways. In school he was a quick 
scholar, particularly in arithmetic; but farm work he 
hated. “I always disliked work,” he confessed at mid¬ 
dle age. “Head-work I was excessively fond of . . . 
but hand-work was decidedly not in my line.” He thor¬ 
oughly learnt the value of money before he had out¬ 
grown babyhood; for Grandfather Taylor’s pride in 
his little namesake occasionally impelled him, against 
his better judgment, to give the youngster pennies with 
which to buy raisins and candies, “which he always in¬ 
structed me to solicit from the store-keeper at the 
‘lowest cash price.’ ” Grandfather Taylor’s casual 
generosity was strictly a family matter. Little Phineas, 
guided by such an excellent teacher, soon began to 
branch out on various speculative lines of his own in 
order to increase his pile. When his schoolmates were 
skylarking about in the holiday seasons, he would pur¬ 
chase a gallon of molasses, boil it down, work it into 
candy, sell it to the neighbors, and ultimately gain a 





290 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


dollar by the transaction. Soon his stock in trade in¬ 
creased until it included ginger-bread cookies, sugar 
candies and cherry rum; the last article sold particu¬ 
larly well to the soldiers who gathered at Bethel on 
military training days. By the time he was ten years 
old, therefore, he had so much money that his father 
“considerately allowed me to purchase my own cloth¬ 
ing.” Nevertheless, he continued to look out “for the 
main chance” so shrewdly that at twelve he felt himself 
to be a man of substance. But at this time he had an 
experience which taught him very forcibly that there 
were other people in the world as shrewd as he—an 
experience destined to be repeated on a far greater 
scale at a later day. He obtained permission to help 
a neighbor drive a herd of cattle to New York; and, 
upon arriving, he began to spend his solitary dollar 
in a prodigal way. Before long, a shopkeeper short¬ 
changed him; in addition to this tragedy, he soon fell 
into the pit he had so often dug for others. Some 
molasses candy tempted him so strongly that he bought 
chunk after chunk. In the end, he bartered the pocket 
knife with its two blades, its gimlet, and its corkscrew, 
the top, and the glittering breast-pin (all of which he 
had just bought), for more candy. Still he was not 
appeased; two handkerchiefs and an extra pair of 
stockings met the same disaster that had befallen the 
toys. As hungry as ever, but more or less resigned to 
his fate, he then trudged home. His mother, discover¬ 
ing the loss of the handkerchiefs and stockings, imme¬ 
diately whipped him and sent him to bed, much to the 
delight of his brothers and sisters, who were envious 
of his good fortune in visiting the city and angry at the 




P. T. BARNUM 


291 


gluttony which had made him entirely forget that they 
were gluttonous too. 

But these were week-day occurrences; Sundays were 
another matter. Even before he could read, little 
Phineas had trotted regularly to Sunday School in the 
single church that the village boasted; for differences 
in creed were rarely discussed in the little town—the 
people generally had more important matters to argue 
about. Faithfully, every Sunday, he was there, shiver¬ 
ing in the winter months—for stoves in village churches 
were then unknown—as he chattered satisfactory re¬ 
sponses to searching inquiries as to the condition of his 
spiritual state here and hereafter. But it seems almost 
certain that more distinctly tangible rewards were par¬ 
tially responsible for making him so punctual. Each 
Sunday’s attendance won a little red ticket worth one 
mill; thus, one hundred tickets meant a prize in the 
form of a book. It was true that, at this rate, it would 
take two years to win the prize; but did not the prize 
mean, in a general way, something for nothing? “In¬ 
finitesimal as was this recompense,” he once remarked, 
“it was sufficient to spur me to intense diligence.” 

When the boy was no longer a boy—when he had 
crossed that vague boundary which separates boyhood 
from youth—he had attained the distinction of being 
known as the laziest young fellow in town, “probably 
because I was always busy at head-work to evade the 
sentence of gaining bread by the sweat of the brow.” 
The father, despairing of making anything better of 
his shiftless son, decided to put him to work as clerk 
in a store, which was bought as a possible corrective of 
the son’s leading propensity. The choice was wise and 




292 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


big with portent of the future; for, since it was a “cash, 
credit and barter store,” Phineas soon forgot his indo¬ 
lence in the opportunities that came for outwitting his 
neighbors in exchanging tenpenny nails, starch, sale- 
ratus and rum for butter, eggs, beeswax, feathers and 
rags. The only drawback attached to the position was 
that he had to rise early in order to sweep the floor, take 
down the shutters, and make the fire; but blissful balm 
came when he condescended to talk with common fel¬ 
lows who had to work with their hands for a living. 
A still greater pleasure came when he purposefully kept 
the store open until eleven o’clock or later, so that the 
chronic story-tellers of the town would be tempted to 
stay and divert him with anecdotes that were not less 
boisterous than clean. 

The death of his father in 1825 forced him to slide 
down the family tree and depend entirely upon himself. 
For a year or two, he still clerked in various stores; he 
spent nearly a year in a Brooklyn grocery, where he 
was compelled to rise so early that he was in perpetual 
danger of losing his position until a native ingenuity 
came to his aid. For two shillings a week, he hired a 
watchman to pull a string which, attached to his great 
toe, hung out of his chamber window. But he was not 
satisfied to work on a regular salary, great or small: 
“My disposition is, and ever was, of a speculative char¬ 
acter,” he wrote at a later day. Accordingly, in 1828 
he seized an opportunity to open a store of his own in 
Bethel, in which, as a public announcement stated, he 
sold “all kinds of dry goods, groceries, crockery, etc., 
etc., 25 per cent, cheaper than any of his neighbors.” 
Furthermore, it furnished a very convenient medium 





P. T. Barnum 
























P. T. BARNUM 


293 


for conducting lotteries—a practice by which he ha'd 
already been sharpening his wits for some years. He 
pondered briefly over the morality of the business, but 
it was fortunately unnecessary to ponder long. “One 
of our neighbors, a pillar in the church, permitted his 
son to indulge in that line . . . and the morality of the 
thing being thus established, I became a lottery man¬ 
ager and proprietor.” In distinct contrast to the pres¬ 
ent time, indeed, lotteries were then commonly patron¬ 
ized by both church and state; and Barnum, who tickled 
millions of people with thousands of amusingly quaint 
devices during his life, always took an infinitude of 
pains in selecting allurements that bore the badge of 
moral approval. He worked several gambling schemes 
of this sort to the great benefit of his purse, and some 
twenty years later explained how they had been engi¬ 
neered, for the sake of any foolish mortals who might 
be tempted to squander their money upon similar 
frauds. “If this expose shall have the effect of curing 
their ruinous infatuation,” he commented, “I, for one, 
shall not be sorry.” It is a little difficult, in fact, to 
see why he should have been greatly distressed at im¬ 
parting information which had long since served his 
own special purposes. 

Games of chance were now becoming a matter of 
course with him; accordingly, in 1829, when he was 
only nineteen, he married a seamstress, “an industrious, 
excellent, sensible, and well-behaved girl,” and managed 
to scrape along for two years more with the help of his 
wife, his store and his gambling tickets. Then he 
started a weekly newspaper whose modest purpose was 
to “oppose all combinations against the liberties of 




294 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


our country”; but the excess vigor of youth soon im¬ 
pelled him to take undue liberties with his own towns¬ 
men. Eventually he was prosecuted three times for 
libel; twice he escaped penalty, but the third time was 
sentenced to pay a $100 fine and spend sixty days in 
the Danbury jail. But he did not take the affair seri¬ 
ously, and proceeded, after the manner of Leigh Hunt 
in a similar situation, to have a highly diverting time. 
Before he entered jail, the cell was papered and car¬ 
peted; he was constantly visited by his friends, edited 
his paper regularly, and was rewarded by receiving 
several hundred new subscriptions during his imprison¬ 
ment. His release was a gala occasion. Forty horse¬ 
men and a marshal bearing the national flag preceded 
the coach, drawn by six horses, in which he and a band 
were carried; and behind this coach came a vehicle 
which bore the orator of the day, followed by sixty 
other carriages full of citizens. The roar of cannon 
attended the march of the procession from Danbury 
to Bethel, while the band continuously played national 
airs, concluding with “Home, Sweet Home” when the 
little town came into view. Apparently, Barnum did 
not believe that the liberties of his country might con¬ 
ceivably be imperiled by those who took its laws too 
lightly; however, the notoriety that was aroused by 
this episode enabled him to keep his store and his paper 
running for a little more than a year. Then he decided 
that he was not in his proper element (“I was not in 
my natural sphere. I wanted to do business faster 
than ordinary mercantile transactions would ad¬ 
mit . . .”), and in the winter of 1834-5 moved his 
family to New York, where he at once began to look 




P. T. BARNUM 


295 


around for opportunities to indulge in extraordinary 
mercantile transactions. 

Such opportunities soon came. For several months, 
to be sure, he found nothing in which his “faculties and 
energies could have full play, and where the amount 
of profits should depend entirely upon the amount of 
tact, perseverance and energy which I contributed to 
the business.” But in July, 1835, sunny fortune began 
to smile upon him, and not often thereafter did the 
fickle dame frown. In that month he heard of an 
amazing negro woman, Joice Heth, who swore with 
positive conviction that she was one hundred and sixty- 
one years old. But extreme age was a minor attrac¬ 
tion; her chief hold upon public credulity lay in the 
equally positive claim that she had been the nurse of 
George Washington. As a public entertainer, she 
showed remarkable garrulity in relating anecdotes 
about “dear little George,” and in expressing, both in 
verse and prose, her firm faith in the theology of the 
Baptist church. It was therefore apparent that her 
exhibition was certain to be extremely interesting and 
remunerative, and Barnum’s sharp nose at once sniffed 
out this fact. Her “story seemed plausible, and the 
‘bill of sale’ had every appearance of antiquity”; and 
so he sold out his small business interests, borrowed 
$500, and bought the “animated mummy” for $1,000. 

Thus began his extraordinary career as a public 
showman. From the beginning to the end, that career 
was dominated by one idea: “I can fool all of the 
people all of the time.” lake his countrymen, he was 
democratic and sentimental in everything except in 
matters of business; in that field he was as thoroughly 




296 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


autocratic and cold-blooded as were all other good 
Americans in his generation—but, as everyone knows, 
that time has long since passed away. In his initial 
experiment, Barnum did not fail to employ some of the 
devices that led in the end to his undisputed, unrivaled 
and unparalleled eminence as the “prince of humbugs.” 
More than anyone else of his time, he was “aware of 
the great power of the public press” and the immense 
possibilities of advertising. It is, indeed, impossible 
to over-emphasize the significance of the fact that he 
was the first American to appreciate the enormous 
financial rewards that were to be won by extravagant 
advertisements. And he was also aware of another 
important fact. To an inquirer who once asked him to 
state the indispensable qualifications of a good show¬ 
man, he confidentially replied that the first qualification 
was “a thorough knowledge of human nature, which 
of course included the faculty of judiciously applying 
soft soap,” which, he explained, was “the faculty to 
please and flatter the public so judiciously as not to 
have them suspect your intention.” The second quali¬ 
fication, however, he did not state—for the excellent 
reason that there was none. 

Perhaps it was fitting that the most practical and 
efficient of American humorists should have gained his 
tremendous fortune principally by employing the lead¬ 
ing element in American humor—hyperbole, in count¬ 
less forms and fashions; but, whether fitting or not, it 
is true. New York soon began to be flooded with hand¬ 
bills which tugged at two of humanity’s strongest in¬ 
stincts: curiosity and patriotism. Joice Heth was set 
forth as “unquestionably the most astonishing and 






P. T. BARNUM 


297 


interesting curiosity in the world,” and as the slave 
of Washington’s father; but her most compelling at¬ 
traction lay in the fact that she “was the first person 
who put clothes on the unconscious infant who was 
destined in after days to lead our heroic fathers to 
glory, to victory, and to freedom.” Flesh and blood 
could not withstand such a combination of irresistible 
enticements; and Barnum was soon clearing a neat 
$1,500 a week. The loathsome old wench played her 
part to perfection. An absolute invalid, unable to 
move any part of her body except her right arm, totally 
blind, toothless, the nails on her helpless left hand 
four inches long and those on her toes a quarter of an 
inch thick, she lay hunched up on her couch day after 
day, spouting a steady torrent of affecting stories about 
“dear little George,” occasionally varying these tales 
with edifying hymns to which she beat accompaniment 
with her withered but still mobile right arm. When at 
length audiences began to fall off, Barnum was ready. 
He printed an anonymous notice to the effect that Joice 
was not a living person at all, but merely an automaton 
ingeniously constructed of whalebone, rubber and 
numerous springs, which talked with the aid of a ven¬ 
triloquist. Thousands who had already seen her came 
tumbling back immediately to discover whether they 
had actually been cheated on their first visit, and they 
departed no wiser than before. 

In his autobiography, Barnum candidly answers the 
question as to whether Joice was an impostor. “/ do 
not know. I taught her none of these things.” His 
private reflections, at the time when she was being dis¬ 
played, were even more candid: “I do not know—and 





298 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


neither do I care ... so long as the cash keeps roll- 

• • n 

ing in. 

Whatever she may have been, Joice was not im¬ 
mortal; and in February, 1836, she went on exhibition 
elsewhere. An autopsy was performed; and the doctor 
who supervised the operation was agreeably delighted 
when he did not (as he had feared he would) spoil 
“half a dozen knives in severing the ossification in the 
arteries around the region of the heart and chest,” for 
there was no ossification at all. Newspaper contro¬ 
versy now waxed hot about the question of her antiq¬ 
uity; and since there was no way in which the matter 
could be settled, it was natural that the discussion 
should grow hotter and hotter. Meanwhile Barnum 
sat by, watching the row and chuckling as he reflected 
that all this clamor “served my purpose as ‘a showman’ 
by keeping my name before the public.” “I will only 
add,” he concluded, “that the remains of Joice were 
removed to Bethel, and buried respectably.” 

Barnum was now fairly started on the road to fame 
and fortune, although for the next five years he failed 
to find any lure so bewitching as “Aunt Joice” had 
been. As an itinerant showman he traveled over the 
eastern United States, meeting with varying success, 
with amusing experiences, and occasionally with dan¬ 
ger. It seems probable, in fact, that he was the origi¬ 
nator of the variety theatrical program, which has 
developed to such complex and enormous proportions. 
His principal performer was Signor Antonio, a juggler 
who had been in England and Canada for some years; 
but Barnum wisely decided that such a title was not 
sufficiently foreign, and therefore changed it to “Signor 




P. T. BARNUM 


299 


Vivalla,” the “eminent Italian artist,” who had “just 
arrived from Italy.” Barnum himself rarely took part 
in the different programs that he offered, although his 
mobile face with its versatility of expression, and his 
moderate skill in legerdemain and ventriloquism, occa¬ 
sionally helped to swell the receipts. Once, when his 
leading negro singer suddenly deserted, he blacked him¬ 
self thoroughly and succeeded so well that “in two of 
the songs I was encored!” Then something unantici¬ 
pated happened. Hearing a disturbance outside his 
tent, he rushed out and found a Southerner disputing 
with the members of his company. Having completely 
forgotten his blackened face, he began to “speak my 
mind very freely” to the Southerner, who instantly drew 
a pistol and shouted “You black scoundrel!” meanwhile 
cocking the weapon. In a trice Barnum took in the 
situation and rolled up his shirt-sleeves with a “pres¬ 
ence of mind which never yet deserted me.” His 
threatening opponent saw the white arms, and, struck 
with consternation at the nearly fatal mistake he had 
made, dropped the pistol. For this providential escape, 
“I cannot but realize that I am deeply indebted to the 
mercy of God,” Barnum reflected. The mercy of God, 
moreover, regularly occupied his thoughts every Sun¬ 
day, when no business could be done. Often, on that 
sacred day, he would gather the members of his com¬ 
pany and read the Bible and printed sermons to them, 
pausing frequently to point out the general correctness 
of the Biblical doctrine of wretchedness in vice and 
happiness in virtue. Yet it was sadly apparent that his 
words carried very little weight for some members of 
the company—particularly for several women with 




300 


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whom the vigorous showman was somewhat better 
acquainted than with the troupe in general. After four 
years, it had become evident that, in spite of everything 
—tact, perseverance, energy, advertisements and the 
mercy of God—the business was not thriving; and in 
April, 1841, he came home “re-resolved that I would 
never again be an itinerant showman.” 

Nevertheless, he at once began to look around for 
some new scheme to mend his fortune; and such an 
opportunity soon appeared in the form of a collection 
of oddities for sale in New York. Lacking the funds 
necessary to effect an outright purchase, he cajoled the 
owners into selling the outfit to him upon a promise to 
pay $12,000 in seven annual installments. He had no 
such sum; but he offered as security five acres of abso¬ 
lutely worthless swamp land near Bethel, which Grand¬ 
father Taylor, in an expansive moment, had once given 
his little namesake as a witness of his generosity. The 
owners accepted this as a satisfactory security, without 
taking the trouble to visit the place; but Barnum at 
least more than kept his word, for the enterprise was 
so successful that all the indebtedness had been paid off 
before the end of the first year. Curiosity and patriot¬ 
ism were again the supreme inducements that were 
offered to the public, although curiosity, which almost 
invariably took the shape of abnormality and deform¬ 
ity, tended to dominate: “Industrious fleas, educated 
dogs, jugglers, automatons, ventriloquists, living statu¬ 
ary, tableaux, gypsies, albinoes, fat boys, giants, 
dwarfs, rope-dancers, . . . instrumental music, sing¬ 
ing and dancing in great variety (including Ethiopi¬ 
ans). etc. . . . mechanical figures, fancy glass-blow- 




P. T. BARNUM 


301 


ing, knitting machines and other triumphs in the 
mechanical arts, dissolving views, American Indians, 
including their warlike and religious ceremonies enacted 
on the stage, etc., etc.” It was no wonder that Bar- 
num’s chief demonstrator, after pointing out to the 
sightseers the staggering attractions of this unheard-of 
array, was accustomed to close his lecture by advising 
his audience to go home and “ponder over the marvels 
that a beneficent Creator and a liberal management 
placed before us for the low sum of 25 cents.” 

Nor is it to be doubted that such an aggregation of 
monstrosities was, indeed, “abundantly worth the uni¬ 
form charge of admission,” and that a little clap-trap 
occasionally, “in the way of transparencies, flags, exag¬ 
gerated pictures, and puffing advertisements,” was 
more than offset by “a wilderness of wonderful, instruc¬ 
tive, and amusing realities.” “Indeed,” he continued, 
“I cannot doubt that the sort of ‘clap-trap’ here 
referred to is allowable, and that the public like a little 
of it. . . .” The public got a great deal. Many 
people who, tempted by the seductive bait: “THE 
GREAT MODEL OF NIAGARA FALLS, REAL 
WATER,” entered and found that a single barrel of 
water, churned by a small pump, served as a represen¬ 
tation of the huge cataract, felt a bit disappointed at 
first; but “they had the whole Museum to fall back 
upon for 25 cents, and no fault was found.” “I con¬ 
fess I felt somewhat ashamed of this myself,” Barnum 
tells us, “yet it made a good line in the bill.” 

The most notorious of the many hoaxes introduced 
into the American Museum was undoubtedly the “Fejee 
Mermaid.” Having been informed that he could buy 





302 


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“a preserved specimen of a veritable mermaid/’ Bar- 
num investigated and found that it was an ingenious 
contraption with the head, arms and breast of a female 
monkey and the tail of a fish, about three feet long, 
apparently the handwork of some tireless and unscru¬ 
pulous Japanese. This was excellent; and when he 
noted that its “mouth was open, its tail turned over, 
and its arms thrown up, giving it the appearance of 
having died in great agony,” he was firmly assured that 
it would be a worthy successor to Joice Heth. In order 
to “modify general incredulity in the existence of mer¬ 
maids,” he carefully worked up a series of newspaper 
articles which stated that Professor Griffin, a high 
authority on anatomy, had found this particular speci¬ 
men, had become thoroughly convinced that it was 
genuine, and was bringing it to New York for exhibi¬ 
tion. He then manufactured a number of woodcuts 
which showed schools of mermaids sporting around in 
the ocean in all their classic beauty. Furthermore, he 
managed to have an article “proving the authenticity 
of mermaids” published in the New York Sunday 
papers on the same date, by insinuating to their respec¬ 
tive editors that each one would be able to score a 
“scoop” on the others. Since the “mermaid fever was 
now getting pretty well up,” he engaged a special hall, 
hired a bogus “Professor Griffin,” and began exhibi¬ 
tions for “the small sum of 25 cents.” The huge 
throngs that came scrambling and pushing their way 
in assured Barnum that he had found a gold-mine; and 
one week later a notice appeared stating that the curio 
was henceforth to be seen at the Museum “without 
extra charge.” In a month’s time it had increased the 




P. T. BARNUM 


303 


total receipts of the building by nearly $2,000, and for 
some years thereafter continued abundantly to prove 
the truth of its owner’s sagacious dictum: “The Ameri¬ 
can people love to be humbugged.” 

Once in a while, to be sure, Barnum failed to get, for 
his incredible collection, certain ensnaring decoys over 
whose money-making possibilities he had long gloated. 
H is laudable endeavor to bring Shakespeare’s birth¬ 
place, in separate sections, to America fell through on 
account of British pride, which, Barnum was amazed 
to discover, would not even consider such a transac¬ 
tion. Indeed, his relatively few failures generally 
came as a result of some obstacle which was intrin¬ 
sically insuperable—something which no amount of 
money whatever could buy, and which for that very rea¬ 
son appealed irresistibly to an imagination that ever 
loved to sport with impossibilities. One failure of this 
sort came when he projected a scheme to tow an enor¬ 
mous iceberg from the Arctic Ocean to New York, put 
a floating fence around it, charge the usual twenty-five 
cents for admission, and regale those who were ad¬ 
mitted upon sherry cobbler made from the iceberg 
itself; but icebergs, he was much chagrined to find, 
ordinarily have a most unpleasant habit of disappearing 
entirely before they even come in sight of New York. 
He once remarked to a visitor that, if the Sultan of 
Turkey could only be persuaded to permit excavations 
in the traditional Cave of Machpelah, great results 
might follow. “If we could only get the remains of 
Abraham and bring them to New York!” he exclaimed, 
rubbing his hands with delight at his own ingenious 
conception. “What do you think of Spurgeon for a 




304 


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show?” he asked the same visitor a moment later. 
“Could he be got over here?” Apparently he could 
not; for it seems that the famous English preacher’s 
own personal exhibition was occupying all of his time. 

But it was not long before the public began to realize 
that the greatest drawing card in the Museum was 
Barnum himself. One fact, indeed, seems to indicate 
that he had anticipated and worked for this very end. 
His office in the Museum was at the head of a stair 
near the entrance, so situated that each visitor had to 
pass it as he entered the building; and, while “Mr. 
Barnum—Private” was inscribed on the door, it in¬ 
variably stood a little ajar. One day a man who had 
just bought a ticket inquired, “Is Barnum in the 
Museum?” “That is Mr. Barnum,” replied the ticket- 
seller, pointing toward the place where the showman 
was sitting, absorbed in a newspaper. “Is this Mr. 
Barnum?” he was asked. “It is,” was the answer. For 
a moment the man stared fixedly at him; then, throw¬ 
ing down his ticket, he exclaimed, “It’s all right. I’ve 
got the worth of my money,” and departed without 
paying the least attention to any of the other prodigies. 
Hamlet without Hamlet would not be more impossible 
than the Museum would have been without Barnum. 
Once seen, he was never forgotten, for he bulked large 
in every particular: the tall, portly figure, the massive 
head with its great face surrounded by wavy, patri¬ 
archal locks, the ears, nose, mouth, chin and eyes were 
all large—bulkiness was the one word that described 
everything. It pleased the better class of his contempo¬ 
raries to believe that he closely resembled Daniel Web¬ 
ster ; but among the lower ranks of society it was widely 




P. T. BARNUM 


305 


whispered that, even more closely, he resembled Jack 
Falstaff (or at least his spiritual descendants), both in 
his general appearance and in his general attitude 
toward life. Wherever he went, in the Museum or in 
the city, he saw peering eyes and pointing fingers, and 
frequently overheard people saying, “There’s Barnum! 
That’s old Barnum!” 

Soon there came the first of those successive events 
which gave him an international reputation. Toward 
the end of 1842, he gained possession of Charles S. 
Stratton, a five-year-old dwarf, a native of Bridgeport, 
barely two feet in height and weighing less than sixteen 
pounds, but perfectly healthy and symmetrically 
formed. The manikin’s natural attractions would 
doubtless have made him a sufficiently lucrative invest¬ 
ment for anyone except P. T. Barnum; but he was 
taking no chances, and besides, the habit of exaggera¬ 
tion had now become easy and natural. So it happened 
that Museum handbills heralded the triumphant en¬ 
trance to the shores of America of “General Tom 
Thumb, a dwarf eleven years of age, just arrived from 
England.” Within a year’s time, the precocious elf 
had made Barnum lose all direct interest in the 
Museum—except in the monthly receipts—and had 
inspired him to go abroad. In January, 1844, he sailed 
for England with little Tom, who was accompanied by 
his doting parents and his French tutor, and who was 
to receive $50 a week together with all expenses. 

Then an unanticipated obstacle arose. At first it 
almost seemed as though British stolidity would not 
relax—as though dwarfs were either too common or 
too insignificant to arouse such phlegmatic people 




30 6 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


out of their steadfast impassivity. The perturbed 
showman almost believed for a time that he had met 
the most marvelous of all curiosities—a nation that 
could not be humbugged; but he was happily disap¬ 
pointed. Perceiving that the usual Yankee methods 
would not serve in this frigid environment, he began 
to meet the enemy on their own grounds. He sent 
letters of invitation to editors and several nobles, 
politely requesting them to come and see the General; 
and little by little they began to respond. Word of all 
this was soon passed around; and before long certain 
uninvited parties began to drive in crested carriages to 
Barnum’s apartments —“and were not admitted” 
Barnum’s servant, dressed in good English style, had 
been instructed to deny admission, in a dignified way, 
to all who did not present cards of invitation. This 
sort of thing was naturally noised about, although it 
was noised quietly; and it was not long before Barnum 
received an invitation to dine with Edward Everett, 
the American Minister, and with Baroness Rothschild 
also. “I felt that the golden shower was beginning to 
fall,” he commented; nor was he at all remiss in hasten¬ 
ing the deluge. He whispered in the ear of Mr. 
Everett that the Queen’s children would surely like to 
see little Tommy. Barnum, in fact, in all his multi¬ 
tudinous endeavors, had always been careful to select 
attractions that would appeal to children—whose 
“voices are the echo of heavenly music,” as he was 
wont to say. His keen brain fully appreciated the fact 
that, if children could be tempted into using their voices 
for purely mundane things—into making clamorous 
appeals to go and see his various marvels—most 




P. T. BARNUM 


307 


parents would succumb to the inevitable and not only 
permit their little ones to go and see, but would also 
go along. Indeed, his portraits, with which America 
was by this time liberally flooded, rarely had his signa¬ 
ture appended because it was not necessary; but under¬ 
neath each one was written, “The Children’s Friend.” 
So it happened that, in a few days, a note came “con¬ 
veying the Queen’s invitation to General Tom Thumb 
and his guardian, Mr. Barnum, to appear in Bucking¬ 
ham Palace on the evening specified.” Tom had 
already begun to appear publicly in Piccadilly; and his 
crafty master, before starting for the royal residence, 
posted this notice on the door of the exhibition hall: 
“Closed this evening, General Tom Thumb being at 
Buckingham Palace by command of Her Majesty.” 

At the Palace, the Lord in Waiting drilled Barnum 
with great care in the etiquette of royalty; he was in 
no event to speak directly to the Queen, and in taking 
leave he was to back out of the room, always keeping 
his face turned toward Her Majesty. When these pre¬ 
liminaries were over, the visitors entered the imposing 
salon where the Queen, Prince Albert, the Duchess of 
Kent, and some thirty of the nobility were waiting— 
for it seems that the royal children, after the fashion 
of all good Victorian youngsters, had scrupulously 
obeyed their mother in the matter of going early to 
bed. Everybody showed much surprise and delight 
when it was seen that Tom was even a more diminutive 
mite than had been expected. The General, perfectly 
at his ease, advanced with a firm tread until he was 
within hailing distance, when he bowed gracefully and 
shouted. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!” All 




308 


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the nobility shook with laughter; and the Queen then 
took Tom by the hand, showed him around the gallery, 
and inquired how he liked the pictures. “First-rate,” 
he answered; and then, after singing and dancing a bit, 
he talked with the Prince Consort. Barnum now had 
his opportunity. With the Lord in Waiting acting as 
interpreter, he entered into conversation with Victoria; 
but, after two or three passages of this sort, he boldly 
started a direct conversation, while the miserable Lord 
in Waiting looked as aghast as his impassive and 
thickly powdered face would permit. Barnum was 
pleased to note that the Queen appeared to enjoy the 
informality of the proceeding, but he did not fail to 
make his exit according to the prescribed formula. 
However, the gallery was long and the General, find¬ 
ing that he was being out-distanced, started to run. 
The Queen’s favorite poodle, properly resenting this 
breach of royal etiquette, instantly chased after him; 
the General, equally angry, attacked it with his cane, 
and the two combatants were so nearly matched in size 
that the distinguished company once more gave way 
to loud merriment. 

General Thumb, in fact, was just as free and easy 
in the presence of royalty as he had been among the 
common people in the Museum. Again accompanied 
by Barnum, he paid two more visits to the Queen. On 
the second occasion, he was ushered into the magnifi¬ 
cent Yellow Drawing Room, where he remarked to his 
hostess that he “had seen her before.” Her Majesty 
then said she hoped he was well. “Yes, ma’am,” he 
replied, “I am first-rate.” “General,” she said, “this 
is the Prince of Wales.” “How are you, Prince?” 




P. T. BARNUM 


3Q9 

Tom inquired; then, standing by the side of the future 
King Edward VII., he coolly measured their respective 
heights, and piped up, “The Prince is taller than I am, 
but I feel as big as anybody,” at which everybody 
roared. One day a celebrated and lovely countess 
visited Tom, “kissed and caressed him over and over 
again; lavished upon him the most endearing epithets; 
and laughingly regretted that she was married”—for, 
said she, “I should like you for a husband.” The Gen¬ 
eral “made a complimentary reply, as he sat upon the 
lady’s arm and leaned luxuriously against her voluptu¬ 
ous bust.” In truth, according to his employer, “his 
morals in all respects” were unobjectionable and his 
“disposition most amiable.” The Duke of Wellington 
was a not infrequent caller upon the two American 
celebrities, and on one occasion, when Tom was imper¬ 
sonating Napoleon, asked him what was occupying his 
thoughts. “I was thinking of the loss of the battle of 
Waterloo,” came the instant response. This brilliant 
reply was “chronicled through the country, and was of 
itself worth thousands of pounds to the exhibition,” 
wrote Barnum; but he failed to say whether or no the 
bon mot had been previously suggested. 

For three years the European tour progressed, until 
in 1847 the wanderers returned to America. But Bar¬ 
num was naturally unable to resist the temptation of 
capitalizing Tom’s now world-wide reputation; and for 
nearly a year more they reaped rich harvests from 
many American cities. In May, 1848, arrangements 
were made whereby the General’s tour could be carried 
on without Barnum’s assistance, and he then returned 
to his home in Bridgeport. “I had now been a strag- 





3 io 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


gler from home most of the time for thirteen years,” 
the modern Sinbad wrote, “and I cannot describe the 
feelings of gratitude with which I reflected that ... I 
should henceforth spend my days in the bosom of my 
family.” Nevertheless, like Sinbad, Barnum was 
wrong; for in less than a year and a half, the “Swedish 
Nightingale” drove all thoughts of home, and even of 
Tom Thumb, from his mind. 

By October, 1849, he had become infatuated with 
the idea of bringing Jenny Lind to America. In this 
undertaking he was not, it is true, very deeply con¬ 
cerned about elevating the standards of artistic taste 
in his native land. “I had never heard her sing,” he 
admitted. “Her reputation, however, was sufficient 
for me.” After pondering very seriously over the mat¬ 
ter, he reached two conclusions, and their order is sig¬ 
nificant. First—“The chances were greatly in favor 
of immense pecuniary success”; second—“Inasmuch as 
my name has long been associated with ‘humbug,’ and 
the American public suspect that my capacities do not 
extend beyond the power to exhibit a stuffed monkey- 
skin or a dead mermaid, I can afford to lose $50,000 in 
such an enterprise as bringing to this country . . . the 
greatest musical wonder in the world. . . .” In an 
even better fashion, a contemporary satirist expounded 
Barnum’s real motive, as well as his low opinion of his 
countrymen’s mentality, in these lines: 

They’ll welcome you with speeches, and serenades, and rockets, 
And you will touch their hearts, and I will tap their pockets, 
And if between us both the public isn’t skinned, 

Why, my name isn’t Barnum, nor your name Jenny Lind! 





P. T. BARNUM 


3ii 

■■■■■ 

It soon became known that Barnum intended to 
enter into negotiations with Miss Lind; and several 
theatrical managers, who had an eye on her themselves, 
hastened to warn her not to make any engagement with 
that notorious liar and cheat, P. T. Barnum, assuring 
her that he would not hesitate to coop her up in a box 
and tote her around throughout the country for exhibi¬ 
tion at 25 cents a head. But at length she was per¬ 
suaded that he was not quite such an ogre as he had 
been represented to be; and a contract was drawn up, 
by the terms of which he was to place $187,500 in the 
care of London bankers—an amount sufficient to cover 
all deficits in the event of failure. Notwithstanding 
the immense profits that had come through Tom 
Thumb’s unique personality, he found it very difficult 
to collect such a large sum; appeals to New York 
bankers convinced him that it was “useless in Wall 
Street to offer the Nightingale in exchange for gold¬ 
finches”; but in the end he won out. There remained 
the even more important task of preparing the public 
for the advent of the singer; and in this case it is a 
pleasure to note that the plain truth was so extraordi¬ 
nary that he conscientiously dispensed with his cus¬ 
tomary embellishments. But he played safe and played 
well. The press responded nobly to the urge of his 
purse; but “little did the public see of the hand that in¬ 
directly pulled their heart-strings preparatory to a 
relaxation of their purse-strings” he confessed at a 
safely remote day. When Miss Lind stepped upon the 
wharf at Canal Street, New York, she found herself 
in a bower of green trees decorated with blazing flags, 
together with two triumphal arches which bore the 




3 12 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


American eagle and the gaudy inscriptions, “Welcome, 
Jenny Lind!” and “Welcome to America!” 

What followed is a matter of musical history. Dur¬ 
ing her first concert at Castle Garden, 5,000 people 
were wrought up to such a pitch of delirious enthusiasm 
that they entirely forgot the exorbitant prices that had 
been charged for tickets. At the close of the concert, 
she was encored again and again by the audience, which 
also vociferously shrieked for “Barnum! Barnum!” 
until he “responded reluctantly to their demand.” 
Numbers of doubting financial Thomases, now entirely 
converted, besought Barnum to sell out his contract 
with Miss Lind; but these baits only made him more 
certain that the quantity of purse-strings destined to 
be relaxed would exceed his fondest hopes. Also, they 
warned him that he would have to look sharply to his 
laurels in order that the singer herself might not choose 
to search for more attractive bargains. Accordingly, 
even before her first concert, when it had become 
evident that the public demand to hear her was to be 
tremendous, he had considerably increased the figure 
that he had previously offered her—not so much from 
generosity as from the realization that it w T ould be “a 
stroke of policy to prevent the possibility of such an 
occurrence.” Miss Lind’s tour of American cities 
during the following months was a series of successes 
never before paralleled by any domestic or foreign 
artist. Two concerts in Washington were attended by 
the President, his family, and all the Cabinet members. 
On the morning after one of these concerts, she was 
visited by Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster; and the 
renowned New England orator “signified his approval 





P. T. BARNUM 


3i3 


by rising, drawing himself up to his full height, and 
making a profound bow.” She found recreation in 
playing at games of India-rubber ball with her man- 
ager; and when he was completely tired out, she would 
make good-natured fun of him, saying, “Oh, Mr. Bar- 
num, you are too fat and too large; you cannot stand 
it to play ball with me!” 

In the end it turned out that she herself could not 
stand it to sing for him, when she was given the chance 
of accepting a better contract. Notwithstanding her 
“character for extraordinary benevolence and generos¬ 
ity,” which, as Barnum had sagely calculated, proved 
to be an attraction of incalculable force in loosing the 
purse-strings of a sentimental public, the singer began 
to listen to seductive offers. One unkind parodist had 
already shocked her unnumbered admirers with a blas¬ 
phemous rendition of the closing lines of Thanatopsis: 

Sustained'by an unfaltering trust in coin, 

Dealt from thy hand, O thou illustrious man, 

Gladly I heard the summons come to join 
Myself the innumerable caravan. 

Visits to her employer’s Museum, it seems, together 
with stories of his exploitations of such freaks as the 
Fejee Mermaid and the Woolly Horse—a most deli¬ 
cate monster, “extremely complex—made up of the 
Elephant, Deer, Horse, Buffalo, Camel, and Sheep”— 
eventually outraged her sense of artistic propriety. 
Was she herself to be remembered, in after years, as 
merely one of the most important freaks of that innu¬ 
merable caravan? Not if she could help it! By June, 
1851, Barnum saw how the wind was blowing, and, 
having tired once more of incessant travel, offered to 






3H 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


release her from the contract on condition that she 
should pay a forfeit already stipulated in case such 
a contingency should arise—a forfeit of $32,000. She 
accepted the offer; but—so we are told—she continued 
to be as “polite and friendly as ever.” But Barnum felt 
much satisfaction at a later day when, having met him 
by chance, she told him that she was being atrociously 
cheated and swindled by employers who lacked his 
scrupulous honesty. At all events, scrupulous honesty 
had paid him very well: his gross receipts from all the 
concerts, after Miss Lind had been paid in full, 
amounted to more than $535,000. 

Although barely of middle age, Barnum was now 
a very wealthy man. Jenny Lind and Tom Thumb, in 
spite of their outstanding eminence, had been only two 
of the irons he had held in the fire. The Museum had 
continued to prosper, models of it were springing up, 
under his management, in other cities, and in 1849 he 
had projected the first of those huge traveling enter¬ 
tainments with which, more than anything else, pos¬ 
terity associates his name. In that year “Barnum’s 
Great Asiatic Caravan, Museum and Menagerie” 
began to tour the country; within four years its profits 
were nearly $1,000,000, one-third of which went to its 
director. Competition arose, of course; but the man 
who was unquestionably one of the most astute finan¬ 
ciers of his generation crushed his competitors with 
little effort. When “side-shows,” enticed by the vast 
popularity of his own spectacle, started to operate near 
by, he fitted out a circus company that performed at the 
same time and place with his main entertainment; then, 
if opposition of any sort threatened, he combined both 




P. T. BARNUM 


315 


of his companies at a single price of admission, and 
competition thus became impossible. Naturally enough, 
therefore, at the close of his engagement with Miss 
Lind, he had decided that it was high time for him to 
rest from his labors in order to cultivate life’s ameni¬ 
ties. 

In pursuit of this ideal, he erected a palatial house 
near Bridgeport at a cost of $150,000, which, modeled 
after the Pavilion of King George IV., was the only 
specimen of Oriental architecture in America. “In 
deciding upon the kind of house to be erected,” he 
remarked, “I determined, first and foremost, to con¬ 
sult convenience and comfort.” Nevertheless, while 
convenience and comfort were not entirely wanting, 
he had chosen to build Iranistan—for that was its 
name—because of its distinct novelty, which “might 
indirectly serve as an advertisement of my various 
enterprises”; and the structure was also erected within 
plain view of a much-traveled railroad. Then he 
bought an elephant, which was used to plow the fields 
near the house; and it was observed that the huge beast 
was particularly industrious when trains were passing, 
and very lazy when no trains were within sight. 

But Barnum himself could not rest, even beneath the 
inviting domes of his bizarre mansion; and he soon 
engaged in an activity which contrasted pleasantly with 
the daily occupation of reckoning up his gains of the 
preceding day. Few things—there were a few, how¬ 
ever—pleased him more than to be regarded as a 
public benefactor. The public, to be sure, he had 
beguiled in almost every conceivable way; but it might 
still be possible to entertain and interest it by preaching 




316 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


the virtue of temperance. In the past, he had been, 
on somewhat rare occasions, a moderate drinker, and, 
as a youthful store-clerk, he had “drawn and bottled 
more rum than would be necessary to float a ship”; but 
now, after listening to a strong temperance lecture, he 
spent a sleepless night. Next morning he carried all 
his champagne bottles out of doors, knocked off their 
heads, and poured their contents on the ground. He 
then signed a teetotaler’s pledge, and was much aston¬ 
ished to see his wife burst into joyful tears when he 
told her of his new resolve; and she then informed him 
that she had often wept all night long through fear 
that wine-bibbing was leading him straight to destruc¬ 
tion. Moreover, he also abandoned another cherished 
practice—the smoking of from ten to fifteen Havanas 
every day—for he now felt that he “had a great duty 
to perform. I had been groping in darkness, was res¬ 
cued, and I knew it was my duty to try and save 
others.” Accordingly, he spent the winter of 1851-2 
“traveling at my own expense” in Connecticut, speaking 
to thousands concerning the dire necessity of turning 
from the error of their ways. Already, while with 
Miss Lind, he had often spoken for temperance on 
evenings when she did not sing; and the crowds which 
heard him sometimes outnumbered those which heard 
the singer—his performance was free of charge. His 
audiences, while very large, were composed principally 
of two classes of people: those who wished to see P. T. 
Barnum in the flesh for the first time, and those who 
wished to see him a second or even third time in order 
to find out what new enormity he was showing off. 
Anyhow, his altruism was rewarded; many hundreds 




P. T. BARNUM 


3i7 


who listened to his free lecture felt that it would be 
unfair not to repay him by hearing Miss Lind; but the 
lectures themselves do not appear to have produced 
any very concrete results. At any rate, it is not known 
that Frances Willard ever included his name among 
her bountiful lists of temperance reformers. 

Meanwhile, Barnum had also been busily engaged in 
penning his first autobiography, which, as the preface 
carefully points out, contained nothing that would 
“shock the feelings of the most fastidious.” As a 
matter of fact, outside of a few racy episodes, the book 
as a whole is rather dull, even though it was written 
“in the confessional mood.” Furthermore, despite its 
occasional extraordinary candor, the book is chiefly 
remarkable for its curious mingling of pious exhorta¬ 
tion with an absolutely naive conceit, and an equally 
nai've nescience of any vital distinction between 
brazenly shameless exploitation and genuine altruism. 
Some thirty years later, in fact, Barnum confessed to 
having written it for a purpose that might have shocked 
fastidious people—“for the purpose, principally, of 
advancing my interests as proprietor of the American 
Museum.” The announcement of the forthcoming 
volume set the public crazy with excitement, and many 
publishers offered fortunes for the copyright; for Bar¬ 
num had announced that he was ready to receive bids 
from responsible publishers. All of them, except the 
most generous one, were naturally disappointed; and, 
as it turned out, they had good reason to be, for 
160,000 copies were sold. The book was dedicated to 
“The Universal Yankee Nation”—a less provincial 
and far shrewder phrase than it appears to be on first 





STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


318 

thought. A different type of autobiography—a lecture 
on the “Philosophy of Humbug”—was also occupying 
a part of his time. He covered the topic with satis¬ 
factory thoroughness, except that he exercised much 
discretion in talking about his most notorious and most 
profitable tricks. The ticket-seller, watching the mobs 
that fought their way in to hear the lecture, once felt 
moved to pour out his wrathful contempt upon them. 
“Old Barnum always draws a crowd,” he snorted; 
“. . . the people will go to see old Barnum. First he 
humbugs them, and then they pay to hear him tell how 
he did it!” 

But now, when everything seemed to be going so 
well—when he was “at home, in the bosom of my 
family,” which, as the closing lines of his autobiog¬ 
raphy states, are “the highest and most expressive 
symbols of the kingdom of heaven”—his earthly king¬ 
dom was suddenly swept away. In 1851 he had bought 
a large tract of land, which eventually developed into 
East Bridgeport, as an enterprise in “profitable philan¬ 
thropy.” In carrying out this scheme, he endorsed the 
notes of the Jerome Clock Company, a firm in New 
Haven, to the extent of over $500,000; for he be¬ 
lieved that this company would attract other industrial 
enterprises. A favorite business maxim of his, which 
had been included in his “Golden Rules for Money- 
Making,” was “Don’t indorse without Security,” and 
he had believed upon investigation that this particular 
firm was amply secure. But it turned out that he had 
been duped. The company’s directors had shown him 
falsified figures; and they immediately applied his 
money to the payment of some long-standing notes, 





P. T. BARNUM 


meanwhile entirely neglecting to transfer their business 
to East Bridgeport. 

So it came about that, in 1855, Barnum was a tempo¬ 
rarily ruined man. When this became known, there 
was an immense newspaper sensation; and, even in his 
despair, he could not help rejoicing because he was 
once more so conspicuously in the public eye. His 
house, his family, his leisure, even his temperance activi¬ 
ties, now had to be abandoned. He closed Iranistan, 
moved his family to a modest residence in New York, 
and once more sallied forth to retrieve his loss. The 
Museum was still working for him day and night, al¬ 
though in comparison with his other speculations its 
profits were small; Jenny Lind had sunk into the pleas¬ 
ant obscurity of matrimony; but Tom Thumb was still 
available, and just as satisfactorily Lilliputian in size 
as ever. In 1857 Barnum again went to Europe with 
Tom and “little Eva,” a diminutive actress, where 
multitudes of the General’s old friends came to see him 
again, and Barnum himself gave a lecture—no longer 
free of charge—on “The Art of Money-Getting,” 
which thus became a fine practical illustration of that 
art. And he did not fail to call on the friends of his 
prosperous days. When Thackeray came to America 
in 1852 to lecture on “The English Humorists of the 
Eighteenth Century,” he had wisely decided that the 
most competent American to advise him in regard to 
managing his lectures would be P. T. Barnum. The 
two had met repeatedly at that time; and four years 
later Thackeray had again sought Barnum’s advice 
before speaking on “The Four Georges.” It was not 
strange that the writer, who had himself posed as a 





3 20 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


showman pointing out the curious puppets in Vanity 
Fair, should have been irresistibly attracted to the 
greatest living showman. Barnum therefore called on 
Thackeray in London and told him the story of his own 
misfortunes. “Mr. Barnum, I admire you more than 
ever,” said the novelist, who then inquired whether any 
financial assistance was needed. After refusing to 
accept any aid, Barnum told his host something that 
very few people knew: he was not so badly crip¬ 
pled financially as was supposed, for he had transferred 
nearly $200,000 worth of property to his wife, in 
whose name it was of course safe from legal confisca¬ 
tion. 

By August, 1857, he was home again, with his for¬ 
tunes considerably bettered; but in December of that 
year Iranistan, which had been put in shape for re¬ 
occupancy, was burned to the ground. Undaunted by 
this disaster, he still struggled on, and by i860 his 
debts were nearly paid. The Museum was now his 
principal source of income; it had grown to be so de¬ 
servedly famous that, when the Prince of Wales toured 
America in i860, stirred perhaps by memories of the 
funny man and the wonderful dwarf to whom his indul¬ 
gent mother had once introduced him, he visited the 
famous building. It “was the only place of amusement 
the Prince attended in the country,” Barnum proudly 
remarked; but his knowledge concerning the youthful 
amusements of the distinguished visitor was a little 
vague. A new phenomenon had now appeared at the 
Museum in the form of white whales. Some mean per¬ 
sons, to be sure, insisted that they were only porpoises, 
but Barnum induced Agassiz to certify that they were 




P. T. BARNUM 


321 


actual whales, “and this endorsement I published far 
and wide.” At first, he tried to keep them alive by the 
simple expedient of hiring an attendant, whose duty it 
was to moisten their mouths and blow-holes with a 
sponge dipped in a barrel of salt water; but in spite of 
this kindness, the whales ungratefully died. He then 
piped water, from New York’s harbor, into a tank 
large enough for new specimens to swim in, and thus 
they were coaxed to live a bit longer than the others. 

With the return of prosperity, his interest in the 
moral values of life also revived. The “Lecture 
Room” in the Museum, where “industrious fleas,” etc., 
had thus far reigned supreme, now became a shelter for 
strictly moral dramas, from which, as playbills de¬ 
voutly announced, all “indecent allusions or gestures” 
were rigidly excluded. The gestures and allusions in 
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “The Drunkard,” however, 
were undeniably decent; and inasmuch as some church 
members, and other people who were almost as respec¬ 
table, looked askance upon the typical theatrical shows 
of the day, it was very fortunate that they could be 
properly entertained and edified by such excellent per¬ 
formances. Perhaps the greatest of these instructive 
dramas was the “Christian Martyrs,” which positively 
reeked with morality. It portrayed the sufferings of 
the Christians in the worst days of pagan Rome, and 
included a series of scenes in which gorgeous costumes, 
martyrs cast up to the lions, and superbly pious rant 
were happily blended. In the final tableau, Constan¬ 
tine’s cross appeared in the sky, and the Roman Empire 
was converted wholesale amidst bursts of reverent ap¬ 
plause; then the curtain fell—a curtain covered with 





322 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


tawdry advertisements that revealed the virtues of 
“Horse Liniment,” “Yahoo Bitters,” and similar 
indispensable family drugs. And all this could be seen 
for only thirty cents. 

But there were also other ways of furnishing clean 
and instructive entertainment; for example, dwarfs 
of both sexes still persisted in being born at intervals 
nicely timed to fit Barnum’s needs. Tom Thumb, 
who by this time had “increased considerably in ro¬ 
tundity,” was waddling around the world as his own 
master; but his successor, Commodore Nutt, was al¬ 
most as microscropic and wholly as moral as the Gen¬ 
eral. In 1862 Lincoln asked Barnum to bring the 
Commodore to the White House. When they arrived, 
the President was busy in a special Cabinet meeting, 
but “had left word if I called to be shown in to him 
with the Commodore.” So they were admitted, and 
Lincoln genially introduced his distinguished visitors 
to the Members of the Cabinet. A general conversa¬ 
tion followed; then, bending his long body, the Presi¬ 
dent took Nutt’s hand and said: “Commodore, permit 
me to give you a parting word of advice. When you 
are in command of your fleet, if you find yourself in 
danger of being taken prisoner, I advise you to wade 
ashore.” The Commodore allowed his eyes to travel 
up the tall form by his side, and responded, “I guess, 
Mr. President, you could do that better than I could,” 
and the President was immensely tickled by the un¬ 
usually brilliant repartee. Earlier in the same year, 
Barnum had bought a dwarf girl for his Museum, one 
Lavinia Warren, with whom General Thumb promptly 
proceeded to fall in love; but unfortunately Commo- 




P. T. BARNUM 


323 


dore Nutt was also deeply smitten with her many 
charms. For a time, all their friends feared that 
there would be a serious physical encounter between 
them, for Nutt had a very peppery temper; but Tom 
continued to be just as amiable as ever, and reason 
eventually prevailed. Much to the despair of the 
Commodore, Lavinia finally decided that the superior 
military rank of the General made him the more de¬ 
sirable husband; and the announcement of their forth¬ 
coming marriage tremendously increased the crowds 
that visited the Museum. Barnum offered to give 
$15,000 to the amorous pigmies if they would post¬ 
pone the wedding for only one month, but their mutual 
passion was too ardent, and the bribe was therefore 
refused. The ceremony took place in Grace Church, 
where admittance could be gained only by a special 
card, and among the guests were several Governors 
and Members of Congress, together with a few gen¬ 
erals of the army, who attended as a mark of respect 
for the proprieties of military etiquette. The happy 
couple retired to a very private life for some months, 
but the attractions of public life proved to be stronger 
than the pleasures of domesticity, and so they encircled 
the globe. When, after the fashion of other business 
men, Tom finally gave up an active career, he could 
comfort his declining days with the reflection that more 
than twenty millions of people had bought tickets to 
see him. 

By 1865 there were very few democratic institutions 
that Barnum had not, in some way, touched and ele¬ 
vated with his diversified talents; however, for one 
thing, he had not yet played any part in the political 




324 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


game. In that year the voters of his district decided 
that he was by far the citizen best qualified to lead the 
fight against the monopolizing tactics of the state rail¬ 
road companies; and so they elected to the State Legis¬ 
lature the man who had shown himself to be by all 
odds the most successful and merciless monopolist of 
public entertainments who flourished in the century. 
During the Civil War his Museum had been particu¬ 
larly successful, for he had pulled the strings of pa¬ 
triotism in every conceivable way; and, while a few 
disgruntled reformers might now claim that his elec¬ 
tion to office had been possible only because of the 
debased attitude toward individual and civic responsi¬ 
bility that prevailed after the war, ordinary people 
knew better. And still, although he thundered might¬ 
ily against the usurping and criminal tactics of the 
railroads, it was observed that, for some strange 
reason, their directors and defendants did not seem to 
be much disturbed. 

One day in July, 1865, when he was speaking in the 
legislative hall with his usual vehemence, a dispatch 
stating that his Museum had been destroyed by fire 
was placed in his hand. He read it through, and then 
went on with his speech as though nothing had hap¬ 
pened. The destruction had been complete; nothing 
was left of all those marvelous rarities that he had 
obtained by twenty years of unstinted labor and money. 
Among other things, the wax figures of once renowned 
Americans had sunk away in the flames even more com¬ 
pletely than they had already disappeared in the popu¬ 
lar imagination. He worked prodigiously; agents all 
over the world again strained every nerve to ferret out 





P. T. BARNUM 


325 


fascinatingly gruesome mishaps of nature, and in 
November of that year the Museum was once more 
displaying its dazzling glories to the public. But in 
March, 1868, it was again destroyed by fire. Barnum 
felt that this sort of thing was getting to be a little 
too common; therefore the “American Phoenix,” who 
had twice demonstrated his ability to make new build¬ 
ings rise from the ashes of those that had perished, 
retired permanently from the museum business and 
settled down at home. Lindencroft, his second Bridge¬ 
port mansion, was succeeded in 1869 by Waldemere 
which adjoined Seaside Park—one of the many bene¬ 
factions by which he had advertised both his generosity 
and his business endeavors at the same time. Such 
uncommon altruism, his townsmen rightly felt, should 
not go unrewarded; so they staunchly supported all of 
his undertakings, advised many others to do likewise, 
and, as a final proof of their reverential admiration, 
elected him to the office of Mayor in 1875. During 
these years he had spent several months each season 
with his family in an elegant residence at Fifth Avenue 
and Thirty-Ninth Street, New York. Here, for weeks 
at a time, he found pleasure in entertaining his jolliest 
crony, Horace Greeley; and the great editor repaid 
the geniality of his host by using the influential columns 
of the New York Tribune to support him in his politi¬ 
cal ambitions. 

Barnum’s magnum opus was organized in 1870. 
This, the most stupendous of all his spectacular 
achievements, was then known as the “Great Travel¬ 
ing World’s Fair.” In April, 1871, it made its first 
appearance in Brooklyn, where the towering tents cov- 





32 6 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


ered nearly three acres of ground; but in spite of its 
size thousands of spectators were unable to gain admis¬ 
sion to the entertainment. By 1872 it had grown so 
large that from sixty to seventy freight cars and six 
passenger coaches were needed to carry its live stock, 
both animal and human, throughout the land, and its 
receipts for each six months of activity averaged nearly 
$1,000,000. Wherever and whenever it appeared, 
nearly all other forms of business were temporarily de¬ 
moralized. A certain factory once expressed the feel¬ 
ings of all sensible people with conclusive force when 
it posted this notice: “Closed on account of the great¬ 
est interference on earth.” Who, indeed, except a few 
perverse moralists, could resist its infinite appeal? 
Certainly, no American may properly be called edu¬ 
cated unless he has seen its magnificent splendors 
from beginning to end: the enormous, flaunting 
posters announcing its coming, the unloading of its 
special trains in the romantic duskiness of early dawn, 
the erection of the huge, flapping tents, and finally the 
gorgeously complex parade—the steam calliope 
screeching out its barbaric toots; the Oriental 
princesses lolling inside of lurching howdahs on the 
backs of gayly caparisoned elephants; the ungainly 
camels; the gracefully prancing zebras; the strong, 
iron-barred cages incarcerating an uncanny mixture of 
sullen, yawning lions, snarling tigers, slinking leopards, 
and hideously grinning hyenas; the cavorting clowns 
and tumbling acrobats engaged in back-breaking con¬ 
tortions; the bewigged and powdered women in their 
highly suggestive flesh-colored tights. And then—the 
performance itself! 




P. T. BARNUM 


327 


Perhaps the most superb attraction that the great 
organization ever boasted, among its countless superb 
attractions, was the monstrous elephant Jumbo. For 
many years that unwieldy creature had seen all Eng¬ 
land at his feet, which occupied an alarmingly large 
part of the ground in the Royal Zoological Gardens 
in London. English children without number had 
shrieked with joyous fright from the top of Jumbo’s 
broad back, and among those who had shrieked loudest 
were the children and grandchildren of the Queen. So 
it happened that, when in February, 1882, the an¬ 
nouncement was made that Jumbo had been sold to 
the awful, the unspeakably utilitarian American, P. T. 
Barnum, all England went into mourning and made 
frantic attempts to have the sale rescinded. Stories 
and poems celebrating Jumbo’s extraordinary virtues 
appeared in the greatest profusion; Jumbo hats, col¬ 
lars, neckties, cigars, polkas, fans, and so on, were to 
be seen everywhere. Nevertheless, the hard-hearted 
American remained adamant. He replied to those 
who offered a much larger sum for repurchasing 
Jumbo than the original sale price had been, that 
he would not part with him now, after all this 
widely advertised consternation, for any consideration 
—not even for twenty times what he had paid. 
But when the attempt was made to lead Jumbo 
away for embarkation, he became embarrassingly 
obdurate. Loudly trumpeting his alarm, his home¬ 
sickness, and his loyalty to British traditions, he 
flopped himself down in the middle of a much- 
traveled street and refused to budge; and, in 
view of his formidable proportions, it was rather dif- 




328 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


ficult to see how he could be made to budge except of 
his own free-will. Barnum’s distracted agent imme¬ 
diately sent this cablegram to his employer: “Jumbo 
has laid down in the street and won’t get up. What 
shall we do.” The delighted employer at once cabled 
back: “Let him lie there a week if he wants to. It is 
the best advertisement in the world.” 

At length, after many difficulties, the now world- 
famous monster reached America, where for more 
than three years he delighted untold numbers with his 
unparalleled accomplishments. During these years a 
part of his regular daily diet was a keg of beer; and 
when Barnum was told of Jumbo’s solitary vice, he 
winked jocosely, in utter forgetfulness of his strong 
temperance principles. Doubtless it was fitting that 
the weak and erring elephant eventually went to 
a drunkard’s grave. In September, 1885, while 
stumbling in a drunken stupor across a railroad in 
Ontario, he was struck by a locomotive. Since an 
irresistible force had met an immovable mass, there 
could be but one result: the engine, derailed and shat¬ 
tered, died at once, and Jumbo, whose skull had been 
fractured, gave up his great ghost in a few minutes. 
Barnum later presented his stuffed skin, together with 
other benefactions, to Tufts College; and from that 
time until the present, Jumbo has held the same place 
in the hearts of all loyal Tufts students that the bull¬ 
dog holds for Yale and the tiger for Princeton. 

As the busy years passed, many competitors matched 
their strength against Barnum’s circus; but they found 
it utterly impossible to compete successfully with such 
a masterly organization, and so almost all of them 




P. T. BARNUM 


329 


failed—with one notable exception. That was the 
“London Circus,” headed by Mr. Bailey; and Barnum 
was unable to breathe easily until he had bought out 
his only dangerous rival. This he did in 1880, 
although not until 1887 was the twin spectacle called 
“Barnum and Bailey’s Circus”—those magical words 
that have meant more to the average American of 
the last three decades than any others, with but a few 
exceptions such as home, country, God and business. 
When the ponderous three-ring circus was exhibited 
in London in 1889, it was witnessed by the entire royal 
family, together with many of the nobility; and the 
general British public forgot its rage over the Jumbo 
episode in the presence of the colossal entertainment. 
The Members of Parliament also attended in a quorum 
greater than that which commonly foregathered on 
those dull occasions when ordinary affairs of state 
were discussed; and Gladstone himself came to boom 
his respects into Barnum’s ear during a brief interval 
when all the other lions happened to be quiet. 

The illustrious showman was now very old; and old 
age found him on a pinnacle of peculiar eminence. The 
trite saying, “His name is a household word,” was 
perhaps as nearly true of him as of any person then 
living. In his eightieth year he could write, without 
too much modesty, “I think I can, without egotism, say 
that I have amused and instructed more persons than 
any other manager that ever lived.” He was known 
not merely in America and Europe, for his agents had 
carried his fame into almost every section of the un¬ 
civilized earth; and when an unknown person in a 
remote corner of Asia mailed a letter to “Mr. Barnum, 




330 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


America,” it reached him without any trouble what¬ 
ever. After ex-President Grant had girdled the 
globe, Barnum visited him and assured him that, as the 
dominant military figure of his time, he was the most 
famous person alive. “No, sir,” Grant replied. “Your 
name is familiar to multitudes who never heard of me. 
Wherever I went, among the most distant nations, the 
fact that I was an American led to constant inquiries 
whether I knew Barnum.” The good fortune which, 
barring a few disastrous occurrences, had steadily 
favored him was as abounding as ever. His wife, to 
be sure, had died in 1873 while he was in Germany, 
but prayer had mitigated his anguish. “I implored 
our dear Father to give them [his children] strength to 
bear their loss and to sanctify her death to the benefit 
of us all.” In his own case, at least, the supplication 
seems to have been answered very promptly; for less 
than a year later he remarried. The doors of Walde- 
mere continued to remain hospitably open to all 
comers, although it was noticed that they swung a 
little wider for persons of social or literary rank than 
for others. Particularly welcome were those who 
could play a good hand at euchre, or amuse their host 
with distinctly masculine stories and reminiscences. 
Bayard Taylor, Elias Howe and Greeley were con¬ 
stantly coming in; and Mark Twain often ran down 
from Hartford to spend the day, although his refusal 
to write something in the nature of a humorous send- 
off for “The Greatest Show On Earth” was a con¬ 
tinual disappointment to Barnum. Matthew Arnold 
found time, in an interval when he was not lecturing 
uncouth Americans on their complete lack of culture 




P. T. BARNUM 


33i 


and incontinent faith in democracy, to be Barnum’s 
guest for some days; but the polished English critic, 
somehow or other, would never tell whether he had 
assigned his odd entertainer any definite place in his 
own famous tripartite classification of society. 

Happy and contented in this life and certain, as 
he was, of endless bliss in the next, Barnum neverthe¬ 
less neglected nothing that might help to strengthen 
his already firm grasp upon earthly fame. Death— 
the greatest curiosity of all—was not going to catch 
him napping; he would cheat the grim monster of at 
least a part of his prey! Accordingly, he brought his 
autobiography up to date in 1869; but the price— 
from $3.50 to $5.00—charged by his publishers turned 
out to be prohibitive; in 1878, therefore, he bought 
the plates and printed a “new and independent” edition 
which was sold for only $1.50 a copy, “besides which 
I present a fifty-cent ticket to my Great Show to each 
purchaser.” Who could resist such an appeal as that? 
Apparently not many people could, for he was soon 
printing editions of 50,000 copies. Again, in 1889, 
his life’s history appeared, once more brought up to 
date and “including his Golden Rules for Money- 
Making.” 

But the time was approaching when the last page 
of that history was to be written by the hand of a 
far greater showman than Barnum himself. His re¬ 
ligious faith had grown to be so sincere that, during 
his last years, he read daily from the Bible and from 
two volumes, “Manna” and “Strength for Daily 
Needs,” which contained a medley of excerpts from 
notorious writers whose profound wisdom, he sagely 





332 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


commented, seemed to sum up “the whole philosophy 
of life.” The venerable man had been endowed with 
such amazing physical vitality that, until his eighty- 
first year, he had enjoyed almost unbroken health; but 
by November, 1880, the muscles of his heart began 
to degenerate. The man who had so often gambled 
with chance was too sly to gamble with death, and in 
1883 he had made a will which in many ways gave 
proof of his foresight. Its most important stipulation 
had been that a large part of his immense fortune— 
it was then ten millions—should be devoted to the 
support of the circus which, he well knew, was to be 
his living monument. It was furthermore specified 
that $8,000 should be expended upon the erection of 
his statue in Bridgeport, where it may be seen today— 
a great bronze effigy, on the water-edge of Seaside 
Park, sitting at ease and gazing benignantly south¬ 
ward across the waters of Long Island Sound. He 
had several legitimate daughters, but no legitimate 
son; his one grandson, therefore, was to be given 
$25,000 as a consideration for retaining only the 
initial letter of his first name and changing his middle 
name to Barnum. The remainder of his estate was 
to be parceled out among his descendants, or given 
to various forms of charity. 

With all his earthly interests thus provided for, he 
made ready for the end. He, who had always taken 
great pride in his ability to manage all manner of 
public spectacles, showed the same pride in planning 
the final spectacle. None knew better than Barnum 
that his funeral would occasion a tremendous public 
outpouring, and he set about arranging for it with 




P. T. BARNUM 


333 


all his old-time skill. But in two very important par¬ 
ticulars it was to differ sharply from the others. The 
designer, in all probability, would not be able to wit¬ 
ness the triumph of his design—although, as usual, 
he would be the chief center of attraction—and the 
customary fee of twenty-five cents would not be 
charged for admission. And yet, in imagination, he 
could see what it would be like: the multitudes of 
mourners, the whole city draped in mourning, the 
flags at half-mast, the display of his photograph in 
nearly every public window, the half-holiday granted 
to the school children, and last of all—the crowning 
triumph!—a sign posted at Madison Square Garden 
in New York, where his show was then running, 
‘‘Closed on account of the death of P. T. Barnum.” 
Several days before the end, he embarrassed his Uni- 
versalist minister very much by choosing, as a text for 
his funeral sermon, “Not my will but Thine be done” 
—words which were also engraved on his headstone. 
Even the imminence of death, it appears, did not se¬ 
riously interfere with his life-long habit of employing 
highly questionable advertisements. In another way, 
also, his innocent vanity showed itself. His illness, 
which was prolonged for nearly five months, had ema¬ 
ciated him to a shocking degree; the great face, with 
its look of corpulent good-humor, its carnal com¬ 
placency, its callous and furtive sagacity, its ponderous 
worldliness, had shrunken into an expression of pinched 
and wizened resignation. Fully determined to be re¬ 
membered as he was when in the heyday of strength, he 
directed that none but near relatives should be per¬ 
mitted to view his body. After all, it was perhaps 




334 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


natural enough that he should not have desired to 
emulate the leading attraction of the Fejee Mermaid. 

Until the last, his buoyant spirits rarely failed. 
Three days before his departure, he spoke suddenly in 
his high-pitched voice to his secretary who was stand¬ 
ing by the bedside: “Ben, I'm going to die this time.” 
After the secretary had expressed a pious hope that 
he was wrong, Barnum again repeated, “No, Ben, 
I’m going to die.” A moment's painful silence fol¬ 
lowed; then, in a matter-of-fact tone, he remarked, “I 
say, Ben, you’d better see the contractor about putting 
up some houses on those shore lots. I’ve got too much 
money in the bank, Ben, too much money in the bank.” 
“Why, Mr. Barnum,” the surprised secretary ex¬ 
claimed, “you said you were going to die!” “Yes, Ben, 
yes,” he answered, as his dark eyes twinkled with fun, 
“but I ain’t dead yet, Ben, am I?” As death drew 
near, he suffered much pain and often swallowed seda¬ 
tives; but his belief in temperance remained strong 
until the last. At four o’clock on the morning of April 
7, 1891, he was asked if he would like a drink of water. 
“Yes,” he replied, and shortly afterwards became 
semi-unconscious. Thus he lingered all day. In the 
evening, as the April sun was setting, the uniquely 
original, the extraordinarily creative, the peerlessly 
fertile and resourceful old showman. . . . 


The concluding lines of the judge’s poem ran thus: 

And finally, discovering the brink of Hades’ crater, 

He’ll put out the conflagration with his Fire Annihilator; 




P. T. BARNUM 


335 


Exorcise from the neighborhood the cussed imp of evil, 

Nor rest, till he has raised, reformed, and then—ENGAGED— 
the Devil! 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Abbott, Lyman, Silhouettes of My Contemporaries. Double¬ 
day, Page & Co., Garden City, 1921. 

Autobiography of Petite Bunkum, the Showman. Written by 
Himself [Unknown Author], P. F. Harris, publisher, 
New York, 1855. 

Barnum, P. T., Humbugs of the World. Carleton, publisher, 
New York, 1866; Life of P. T. Barnum. Written by 
Himself. Redfield, New York, 1855; Present and Past. 
Murray’s Magazine, London, January, 1890; Struggles 
and Triumphs; or, Forty Years’ Recollections of P. T. 
Barnum. Written by Himself. Courier Co., Buffalo, 
1878; Struggles and Triumphs, or Sixty Years’ Recollec¬ 
tions of P. T. Barnum. Courier Co., Buffalo, 1889. 
Barnum’s Parnassus [Unknown author]. D. Appleton & Co., 
New York, 1850. 

Benton, Joel, P. T. Barnum, Showman and Humorist. Cen¬ 
tury Magazine, August, 1902. 

Bradford, Gamaliel, Damaged Souls. Houghton, Mifflin 
Co., Boston, 1922. 

Haines, G. W., P. T. Barnum and His Museum. Bruce, 
Haines & Co., New York, 1874. 

Werner, M. R., Barnum. Harcourt, Brace & Co., New 

York, 1923. 




MARK HANNA 


That period of United States history in which Mark 
Hanna was the actual and William McKinley the titu¬ 
lar dominating personality, seems far more remote and 
unreal, in the light of the past two decades, than it is 
in time. The records of its achievements must be 
sought, not in sun-lit and much frequented library 
rooms, but in the cob-webbed gloom of placidly undis¬ 
turbed shelves; time’s dust is settling thickly on its 
pamphlets and newspapers, which already touch the 
nostrils of the few who explore them with musty odor 
(most romantic of all aromas), and their yellowing 
pages crackle a little drearily upon being opened, as 
though in protest against an unwelcome wakening from 
repose. But the memory of the days described in those 
fading documents still lives in the minds of Americans 
yet under middle age, although that memory has been 
almost obliterated during recent years in which actions 
of far greater moment were being performed. More 
than that: some of the sinister features of the Mc¬ 
Kinley Administration are almost certain to appear 
and reappear, with perennial youth and vigor, in a 
country that boasts the glorious distinction of being 
the world’s greatest experiment in democracy. May 
there not, then, be some interest—nay, some clarifying 
information—to be found in investigating briefly some 

336 


MARK HANNA 


337 


of the more salient actions of that period, when the 
course of events was so largely shaped by a person who 
had more influence than ballots had—who, in fact, 
knew how to make ballots do things which their 
markers never intended them to do? 

The curious explorer into the past may frequently 
come to the un-Carlylean conclusion that the history 
of the world is, to a large extent, the biography of little 
men. Certainly, many great figures of much storied 
and historied fame seem, to the discriminating seeker 
for truth, to have been of far less significance than 
some who, to all appearances, humbly served those 
majestic figureheads. Properly to portray the inter¬ 
twined careers of Mark Hanna and McKinley would 
require the pen of W. S. Gilbert and the pencil of 
Hogarth, both of whom, in spite of surface humor, 
actually depicted the life of their time with searing 
truth. Those two artists are dead. Perhaps, however, 
it will be possible to gain some idea of the interplay 
of hidden forces which were most powerful in Mc¬ 
Kinley’s time if certain aspects of “King-Maker” Mark 
Hanna are scrutinized. The problem is this: just how 
was it possible for a government nominally of, by and 
for the people to become for a considerable period, 
mostly through the labors of a man who was never 
officially more than Senator, a government chiefly of, 
by and for the principal incorporated business interests 
of our country? This question, although it may be 
somewhat puzzling, as is the song the Sirens sang and 
the name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among 
women, is also not, one may presume, beyond all con¬ 
jecture. 




338 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


I 

Perhaps the Comic Spirit, perhaps some ironically- 
minded god, perhaps plain chance brought it about 
that Mark Hanna, maker and molder of a President, 
was born in Ohio, the state whence McKinley, together 
with other Presidents, came. His ancestry, like Mc¬ 
Kinley’s, was Scotch-Irish; “but,” Hanna once said, 
“he had the Scotch and I had the Irish of the combina¬ 
tion.” His paternal grandfather was a stern Quaker; 
and was there not something of Quaker taciturnity in 
Mark himself? While McKinley talked, Mark Hanna 
acted with quiet but deadly efficiency. Dr. Leonard 
Hanna, Mark’s father, having been defeated in run¬ 
ning for Congress, once replied to a friendly query as 
to why he thenceforth sought no further political pre¬ 
ferment, “Because I would have to get into the mud.” 
The son does not seem to have been much worried by 
any such scruple. His mother, whose mind was “bright 
but not witty,” exercised decisive authority over her 
children; one infers that she lacked the wit to do other¬ 
wise. The second of these children, born in New 
Lisbon on September 24, 1837, was named Marcus 
Alonzo—“which had,” remarks Joseph B. Foraker, 
a sort of pea-jacket suggestion that was child-like and 
bland. It should have been Marcus Aurelius, for in 
rugged character, and aggressive courage, if not in 
gentle consideration for others, he was like that great 
Roman, ever ready for battle, and, although occasion¬ 
ally defeated, never conquered but once—then bv 
death.” 

Mark’s boyhood and young manhood, while not 




MARK HANNA 


339 


startling in any way, gave many signs of the qualities 
which made the mature man so powerful, so unscrupu¬ 
lous, so inflexible of will, and yet so well liked by 
thousands. Did he see visions and dream dreams, 
while driving the cows to pasture in his boyhood days, 
of a time when he would drive business men, Congress¬ 
men, Senators and a President before him? A youth 
who slipped garter-snakes between the pages of books 
owned by a school-ma’am whom he despised; who, as 
self-appointed captain of some forty other boys, seized 
a water-hose from the hands of inefficient firemen and 
himself extinguished a fire; who could tell a girl to 
whom he had been more or less engaged for several 
years that their love affair must end because she was 
shy, awkward, and not at all lively—well, such a 
youth certainly showed indications of self-confidence 
and initiative. And when his relatives, who in the 
early forties had become the leading capitalists in their 
community in Ohio, lost all their capital through the 
failure of a canal on which they depended for trans¬ 
portation, and thereupon started a new business firm 
in Cleveland, it is significant that Mark, who entered 
the firm when he was twenty-one, was made a partner 
upon the death of his father in 1862. 

At about this time his diplomatic powers were 
already budding. He persuaded his brother, Howard, 
to go to war in his own place, arguing that his greater 
business ability made it expedient for him to remain 
at home. “I did the best I could,” he remarked years 
later, “I sent a substitute. Four years later I had 
the honor to be drafted”—when the war was practi¬ 
cally over. Mark Hanna early learnt how to shoulder 




340 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


unpleasant duties upon others, and how to manipulate 
men and events for his own advancement. 

He learnt, also, how to manipulate a prospective 
but unfortunately Democratic father-in-law, who was 
one of Cleveland’s most successful business men. Was 
not Mark wise in breaking off his engagement with a 
“shy, awkward, and not at all lively” young lady, when 
he could marry one who had none of these deficiencies, 
but who had an attraction which would have more than 
atoned for such blemishes had she chanced to have 
been afflicted with them—future wealth? What 
availed an irate parent’s wrath against a Republican 
suitor when that suitor was Mark Hanna? The parent 
swore violently Democratic oaths, the daughter wept 
and began to lose her health, but the suitor budged 
not an inch at either curses or tears. There could 
be but one result. The parent capitulated, but not 
without a final dig: “I like you very well, Mark, but 
you are such a damned screecher for freedom' 1 —prob¬ 
ably the first and only time that anyone ever accused 
Mark Hanna of that. 

From 1867 until his definite entry into politics in 
1894, the coal and iron industries were his chief in¬ 
terests. But he still had energy enough left to become 
director of several railroads, owner of a Republican 
newspaper, president of a bank, owner of a theater, 
and owner and director of a local railroad which grew 
under his control into a company valued at $9,000,000. 
He was thus becoming rich and prominent, which 
meant that he was becoming powerful—what else 
could it mean? His power was shown in quiet ways. 
When, for example, he influenced votes in the City 






Mark Hanna 

























' 


























MARK HANNA 


34i 


Council in the interest of his railroad, as he regularly 
did, the fact was not recorded in his newspaper as a 
news item of general interest. But unfortunately he 
could not control other newspapers; and when certain 
hostile ones first began to call him “Boss” Hanna and 
to say that he was aggressive and greedy, he could— 
well, he could deny it and keep on bossing, but conceal¬ 
ing it pretty well by skillful diplomacy. He paid the 
men in his employ well and even allowed them to union¬ 
ize—and why not? Had not some experiences with 
strikes convinced him that it was to his interest to 
keep his men contented, which meant that they would 
work harder for him? “A manufacturing corpora¬ 
tion,” he once wrote, “can make no better investment 
than in the hearty cooperation and good feeling of its 
employees.” It was, he rightly believed, merely good 
business policy to allow his men to tell him their 
troubles, to greet them with condescending familiarity, 
and occasionally to make a little speech to the “boys,” 
telling them how much he valued their services. On 
one occasion, when a disastrously long and disorderly 
strike had occurred on all the railway lines in Cleve¬ 
land except his own, and when his coffers were swelling 
with the returns of surplus traffic, he showed the large¬ 
ness of his heart by generously giving each of his em¬ 
ployees a new and shining five-dollar gold piece as a 
token of his appreciation. Was it any wonder that 
they, good men and loyal to all American traditions, 
believed the “Boss” was the kindest, most generous of 
men? 

So, by degrees, Mark Hanna became one of the 
leading business men in Cleveland. By degrees, also, 




342 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


he entered politics, became thoroughly fascinated with 
the game, and finally retired from the coal and iron 
business in 1894, telling his brother that he was weary 
of office routine, and that he wished to get some amuse¬ 
ment from the remainder of his life. The particular 
form of amusement he had chosen was the nomination 
and election to the presidency of William McKinley. 
But why McKinley? Why not John Sherman or 
Joseph B. Foraker? They were Hanna’s friends (at 
least when Republican harmony demanded it), good 
and true Ohioans, and considered to be of presidential 
caliber—or is timber a more appropriate word? For 
one thing, Sherman had had his fling at the office in 
1888 and 1892, but the fling had twice landed him 
upon his head instead of upon his feet. Foraker had 
been a successful Governor and was admittedly one 
of the most popular orators of the day; but was 
he not just a little too independent? Who re¬ 
mained, then, except McKinley? But who was Mc¬ 
Kinley? 

He was a man in whom the elements were so mixed 
that Mark Hanna might have said: “This was a man 
—after mine own heart.” Some of these curiously— 
or perhaps not curiously—diversified elements were: 
piety and concomitant dullness, patriotism and self- 
seeking, occasional firmness but more often servility, 
amiability and trickery. Even in small matters he was 
exceedingly cautious and wary. When shaking hands 
with a crowd after a speech, he always got hold of 
each person’s hand first, and with such a high grip as 
to save his own hand from being squeezed. Rarely did 
he put down on tell-tale paper any admissions or prom- 




MARK HANNA 


343 


ises which might later prove to be embarrassing, and 
what he actually wrote down, as President, was almost 
invariably penned with a biographer in mind. One of 
the boldest and most original things he ever did was 
to shave himself, on his campaigning trips, with a 
straight razor, without using a mirror, but walking 
around the room, talking, and even reading a news¬ 
paper. He was a mixture of ineffectual idealism and 
sordid, though perhaps unconscious, hypocrisy—in 
short, an instrument devised, it almost seems as though 
by Providence, for Mark Hanna to play upon at will. 
Perhaps McKinley can best be understood if one notes 
that the five people who chiefly influenced him before 
he met Hanna were women: his mother, two sisters, 
a school teacher, and his wife. Is it any wonder then, 
that, when McKinley was a mere child (so the author 
of the official two-volume apology for his life tells us), 
he “always looked a trifle cleaner and neater than 
other boys,” and he never used “bad words”? At the 
age of ten, he marched bravely up the aisle of a Meth¬ 
odist church to the “mourners’ bench” and joined the 
church on probation. But really, probation was not 
necessary, for he was always a moral young man who 
never yielded to the snares of the flesh as his prede¬ 
cessor, Grover Cleveland, had done in his youth; Mc¬ 
Kinley lacked the initiative and energy necessary for 
Don Juan adventures. 

He was, in short, religious—amiably, innocuously 
religious. Says one who traveled extensively with him 
on his presidential campaigning trips: “In a very un¬ 
ostentatious manner, he always had his private devo¬ 
tions, and knelt at his bedside the last thing at night 




344 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


and the first thing in the morning.” Again and again, 
when he was presidential candidate in 1896, delega¬ 
tions of ladies who came to the “front porch” at Can¬ 
ton devoutly thanked God that, when McKinley was in 
the White House, once more a man of pure character 
would preside over the councils of the nation; and they 
frequently decked him with flowers “typical of the 
purity of his life and character, as unsullied as his 
honor, and as fragrant as his good name,” as one fe¬ 
male admirer jubilantly phrased it—and McKinley 
could only repay such affection by perpetually wearing 
a pink carnation in his buttonhole. “President Mc¬ 
Kinley,” Mark Hanna once said, referring to McKin¬ 
ley’s devotion to his wife, “has made it very hard for 
the rest of us husbands here in Washington.” It is, of 
course, quite likely that McKinley’s domestic fidelity 
did not arouse to emulation such Senators and Con¬ 
gressmen as were bachelors, or even some who were 
husbands; but such matters, while pleasant to speculate 
upon, are perhaps beside the point. In his personal 
apearance, McKinley had the figure and face of a 
bishop, with his stodgy frame, his look of anxious 
firmness, his large nose, his shaggy eyebrows, his wide 
mouth, and his chin that looked so strong until one 
noted the cleft in its middle. His fairly thin lips seemed 
to indicate will-power; but Mark Hanna’s lips were 
thinner. 

Such was the man whom Hanna decided to elect to 
the Presidency. But along with all the virtues already 
noted, McKinley had another and perhaps greater: he 
was a firm—in this case, uncompromisingly firm—be¬ 
liever in a protective tariff. Had not his father and 




MARK HANNA 


345 


grandfather been engaged in the coal and iron indus¬ 
tries, and had he not seen how necessary for those in¬ 
dustries a protective tariff was? As Congressman, he 
delivered innumerable speeches favoring such a tariff. 
His speeches, which in most cases were popular, had 
not been confined strictly to that issue; he discussed 
subjects ranging from the tariff on peanuts to the assur¬ 
ance of immortality—at any rate, immortality for 
Republicans. Gradually he became known as the 
tariff’s best eulogist, and in 1890 the act then passed 
bore his name. It was this activity of McKinley’s 
that caused Mark Hanna, as early as 1888, to eye 
him with favor as a future presidential candidate; 
for he and McKinley, in their common dependence on 
the coal and iron industries, were two souls with but 
a single thought—protection. But in some other re¬ 
spects their thoughts differed considerably. 

II 

Thus began one of the most fascinating chapters 
in political history: the actual making of a President 
by a private citizen who was possessor of much money, 
more enthusiasm, and extraordinary ability as an ad¬ 
ministrator and political adventurer. But just here 
the waters begin to grow deep, for the maneuvers by 
which Mark Hanna made McKinley President were 
quite sui generis in political history. Other men, or 
groups of men, have of course used many of Hanna’s 
tactics in the grooming of various presidential candi¬ 
dates; but here was a man who strove ceaselessly for 
eight years, single-handed nearly all that time, for one 




346 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


definite thing—a thing ordinarily accomplished by 
various forms of chicanery, subterfuge, barter and 
compromise in the final weary hours of a political con¬ 
vention. Chance and expediency have, after all, been 
the chief factors in the making of most of our Presi¬ 
dents; but it was not chance nor expediency that ac¬ 
complished the election of McKinley; it was the in¬ 
domitable purpose, the tireless energy, the resourceful¬ 
ness, in short, the genius of one man. All this is fairly 
simple and quite commonly known. What is not so 
simple and commonly known, and what impartial but 
enthusiastic historical curiosity finds difficult to 
illuminate and clarify is, how the remarkable versatility 
of that genius showed itself in concrete ways. For the 
genius of Mark Hanna was of a high order largely 
because it so successfully hid its manifestations from 
the public of his own day and from the eye of pos¬ 
terity; because it left so comparatively few traces. 
Hanna wrote few letters and those few were rarely 
self-revealing in the deepest sense; his public speeches 
were concerned with matters eminently safe; he did not 
often talk, after the manner of small souls, for publi¬ 
cation; he covered his political tracks with the sagacity 
of Le Renard Subtil. Here he dropped a monitory 
threat, there he made a flattering promise; here he 
engineered a secret conference, there he gave a color¬ 
less public interview. By turns he could be gracious 
and dangerously hostile, pliant and adamantine, humble 
and Napoleonic. He knew the great value of adapta¬ 
bility. He did not, for instance, go to church, but he 
did something better—he gave money generously to its 
various charitable causes, and thus won the admira- 





MARK HANNA 


347 


tion, not to say the votes, of many piously soft souls. 
In brief, he had the greatest of gifts: the gift of being 
all things to all men. 

And yet, fortunately, his very subtlety, his scrupu¬ 
lous submergence of self in order to make more certain 
his end, occasionally defeated his purpose. His wily 
art was sometimes so superb that it aroused the notori¬ 
ety which he most wished to avoid—the notoriety 
which a merely clever political prestidigitator would 
never have aroused. Shakespeare, greatest of all mas¬ 
ters in the art of maintaining a vast, Olympian aloofness 
in his writings, habitually revealed the cosmic reaches 
of his mind more plainly than the most poignantly lyric 
poems lay bare their writers’ emotion. The art that 
conceals art is the greatest because it also reveals most; 
its very richness and exuberance only betray it the 
more completely. Mark Hanna of course sometimes 
made mistakes: mistakes in judging men (though this 
was rare), or in giving momentary lease to his temper; 
for, like most autocrats, he was intensely passionate 
and frequently lost his self-control when some rash 
person tried to thwart him. “Damn you, haven’t you 
any compromise in your make-up?” was his usual retort 
to those who dared to oppose him. His full, roundish 
face wore, to the ordinary observer, an expression 
somewhat quizzically good-humored, somewhat “child¬ 
like and bland” like his name; and yet beneath its 
affable and rather self-satisfied exterior there were un¬ 
mistakable signs—due in part, perhaps, to the large 
head, the huge ears, the strongly formed nose, the 
wide mouth with deeply marked lines running from 
either corner up to the rear of the nostrils, but due 




348 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


most of all to the unwavering gaze of those soul- 
searching brown eyes—of a harsh and pitiless temper. 
And, in the face of opposition, that temper would 
blaze forth and the lightning of his wrath would re¬ 
veal some hitherto dark nook or recess of his person¬ 
ality, for he would blurt out some unvarnished and 
therefore undiplomatic truth. Also, when necessity 
called for it, he would play his cards openly, with the 
instinct of the born opportunist to gamble with fate— 
and fate was almost invariably kind to him. 

But it is time to specify. He who loves to make a 
dispassionate study of the curious complexities of the 
human mind will find much that is arresting, and sug¬ 
gestive of the way in which Mark Hanna’s mind un¬ 
wittingly revealed itself, if he will ponder briefly on 
the matter contained and implied in these excerpts of 
a letter of Hanna’s, written to a friend in 1890 in 
order to dissuade him from carrying on a suit against 
the Standard Oil Company. 

“Recently while in New York I learned from my 
friend, Mr. John D. Rockefeller, that such suit was 
still pending, and without any solicitation on his part 
or suggestion from him, I determined to write you, 
believing that both political and business interests justi¬ 
fied me in so doing. While I am not personally in¬ 
terested in the Standard Oil Co., many of my closest 
friends are, and I have no doubt that many of the 
business associations with which I am connected are 
equally open to attack. . . . There is no greater mis¬ 
take for a man in or out of public place to make 
than to assume that he owes any duty to the public 
or can in any manner advance his own position or in- 





MARK HANNA 


349 


terests by attacking the organizations under which ex¬ 
perience has taught business can best be done. From 
a party standpoint, interested in the success of the 
Republican party, and regarding you as in the line of 
political promotion, I must say that the identification 
of your office with litigation of this character is a 
great mistake. . . . The Standard Oil Co. is officered 
and managed by some of the best and strongest men in 
the country. They are pretty much all Republicans 
and have been most liberal in their contributions to 
the party, as I personally know, Mr. Rockefeller 
always quietly doing his share. . . . We need for the 
struggles of the future the cooperation of our strong¬ 
est business interests and not their indifference or hos¬ 
tility. You will probably not argue with me in 
this. ... I simply say with respect to this matter, that 
prudence and caution require you to go very slow in 
this business.” 

Alas, poor William McKinley! What chance hadst 
thou against such a mind as this? Little cause for 
wonder it is that, several years later, Mark Hanna, 
seeing that this letter contained admissions whose im¬ 
port he had not realized, made desperate efforts to 
gain possession of it; even less cause for wonder it is 
that his too charitable biographer makes even more 
desperate efforts, for some four pages, to prove that 
at least the most damaging parts of the letter were 
fraudulent, by the pleasant process of assuming that 
all the persons concerned in its eventual publication 
were either liars or dupes. For in this piece of writing 
appear specific instances by means of which Hanna’s 
personality can be at least partially comprehended: 




350 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


his extraordinarily fertile and canny craftiness, to¬ 
gether with touches of his dangerous temper. But 
the chief point is that, when Hanna wrote the letter, 
he had not the remotest reason for supposing that it 
would ever be made public; his error (and it was an 
error sufficiently logical) lay in assuming that all Re¬ 
publicans were influenced by the same motives of pure 
political and financial expediency that guided him. 

This, then, was the mind that had determined to put 
McKinley in the White House. Hanna began by 
making McKinley Governor of Ohio in 1892. In 
laboring for McKinley, he spent his money freely, 
prodigally, for speakers, halls, campaign literature 
and—votes. In the presidential convention of 1888, 
for instance, Foraker found him buying many votes of 
colored delegates in a hotel. He protested, but finally 
withdrew in defeat and sought apartments elsewhere— 
was he not arguing with Mark Hanna? In later 
years Mark said: “I will not give a cent for any man’s 
vote. I am not engaged in that kind of business.” 
Again, in 1896, he wished to barter Cabinet positions 
for delegations from doubtful states, but McKinley 
boldly protested: “There are some things, Mark, I 
would not and cannot do, even to become President of 
the United States.” Whether he particularized as to 
the precise nature of these things, the chronicle sayeth 
not; but for once Hanna agreed to do as McKinley 
requested. Later Hanna said, apropos of this occa¬ 
sion, “It made a better man of me,” at the same time 
wiping away a hypothetical tear. However, in 1896 
Hanna still continued to promise many politicians that, 
if they would deliver their quota of votes to Me- 




MARK HANNA 


35i 


Kinley, they would be “consulted” after the election as 
to various appointments; but he so worded these prom¬ 
ises that he could keep himself and McKinley free 
from specific obligations. And, after all, is it not 
easy to see that there is a vast moral difference be¬ 
tween making a definite pledge and merely promising 
political patronage? Reasoning thus, it seems, Mark 
Hanna fortified himself with the belief that he had in¬ 
deed been made a better man, as he handed out the 
post-election plums. 

But before these things, McKinley had been elected 
Governor in 1892, and Hanna had at once begun to 
plan, with far-seeing astuteness, for the campaign of 
1896. Shortly after McKinley was made Governor, 
Hanna persuaded him to go South and try to create 
a favorable impression there. In 1893 McKinley 
would have been made bankrupt through an unfor¬ 
tunate investment, and his political career might well 
have been ruined because of the publicity involved in 
this affair, if Hanna had not succeeded in keeping the 
incident secret and in raising enough money, by con¬ 
tributing some of his own and by persuading others 
to contribute, to pay off the debt. For Hanna already 
had made himself popular with Republican leaders in 
Ohio by cheerfully giving large sums of money in va¬ 
rious campaigns in which, for personal (in other words, 
financial) reasons, he was interested. As he handed a 
committee his first contribution, he was wont to say: 
“Boys, I suppose you’ll need some more money. If 
you run short, you know where my office is.” It is 
not related that Hanna ever found it necessary to 
make this offer a second time. 




352 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


For the sake of harmony in the coming struggle, 
Hanna became reconciled, temporarily, to his chief 
thorn in the flesh, Foraker, who was eventually per¬ 
suaded to place McKinley’s name before the Ohio 
State Convention in March, 1896, as Ohio’s candidate 
for the Presidency. On that occasion, Foraker’s speech 
contained this characteristic sentiment: “William Mc¬ 
Kinley is the ideal American statesman, the typical 
American leader, the veritable American idol [tremen¬ 
dous cheering].” The veritable American idol at once 
wrote to Foraker thus modestly, regarding his speech: 
“It was perfect—it could not have been better. It 
was in the right spirit, admirable in phrase and will 
do much good everywhere.” 

As the Convention of 1896 approached, the only 
other formidable candidates beside McKinley were ex- 
President Harrison and Thomas B. Reed. Hanna 
decided that the best way to defeat them was to make 
the people think that the bosses were behind them— 
a master stroke that proved successful, for McKinley 
was nominated on the first ballot. Mark Hanna might 
well rejoice, for he had spent over $100,000 in Mc¬ 
Kinley’s behalf; rather expensive amusement, to be 
sure, but was not protection for his interests now 
almost certain? After the nomination, in response to 
the demand of the Convention that he should speak, 
Hanna rose and said: “. . . this nomination was made 
—by the people. What feeble efforts I may have 
contributed to the result, I am here to lay the fruits 
of it at the feet of my party and upon the altar of 
my country [applause].” But when, upon returning 
to Cleveland, Hanna was greeted like a conquering 




MARK HANNA 


353 


hero because of his part in McKinley’s nomination, 
he spoke in a different way. As he rode through the 
streets, he caught the eye of a friend. He cried out 
“Hello!” and, inflating his chest and pointing to him¬ 
self, immediately added, “Me Injun! Me big Injun!” 
When he addressed his townspeople, however, he be¬ 
came once more a—political speaker. “No ambi¬ 
tion . . . prompted me. I acted out of love for my 
friend and of devotion to my country.” 

As everyone knows, McKinley was triumphantly 
elected—were not the chances almost sixteen to one 
that he would be? Yet much money had been needed, 
and Mark Hanna obtained it in generous sums, from 
Wall Street principally, which had some small interest 
in placing “The Advance Agent of Prosperity” in the 
White House. In fact, over $16,000,000 were spent 
by the Republicans in this campaign—by far the largest 
amount of money ever expended in any presidential 
campaign by any political party, before or since. The 
campaign had not, in truth, been a very easy one, for 
the Democratic Donkey was braying unusually loud 
that year; that is to say, the “Boy Orator,” William 
Jennings Bryan, was the party’s candidate. The Re¬ 
publicans attacked the Democrats for their “record 
of unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and disaster,” 
as the platform stated—what else could a political 
platform be expected to state? The Democrats, not 
to be outdone, attacked Mark Hanna as a “Beast of 
Greed” and as an incarnate dollar-mark. But, though 
talk about crowns of thorns and crosses of gold might 
stampede a Democratic Convention, it did not, curi¬ 
ously enough, seem to affect the country much; not 





/ 


354 STRENUOUS AMERICANS 

even so much as such an insignificant thing as the 
general business depression of the time. And, as be¬ 
tween two geese, was not the country wise in choosing 
the one that promised to lay golden rather than silver 
eggs? McKinley was triumphantly elected, the nation 
was saved from destruction (it is so saved quadren¬ 
nially), and Mark Hanna was happy. 

But he was not entirely happy. While it was doubt¬ 
less very nice to be the power behind the throne, was 
he to be blamed for wanting a little of the throne it¬ 
self in the form of a senatorship? McKinley, it is 
true, wished Hanna to enter his Cabinet. A week 
after the election he wrote to Hanna thus: “I want to 
express to you my great debt of gratitude for your 
generous life-long and devoted services to me. Was 
there ever such unselfish devotion before? . . . God 
bless and prosper you and yours is my constant prayer. 
I turn to you irresistibly.” Then came the offer of the 
Cabinet position. But Mark Hanna did not desire 
that particular place, perhaps because it would have 
been a little too public, and because his special function 
lay in another direction—in the direction of closed 
doors, strictly private conferences, and similar ameni¬ 
ties so bountifully afforded to Senators and Congress¬ 
men. Hence it was that Mark declined the Cabinet 
position, but suggested that a senatorship would be 
very welcome. 

Then followed an incident eminently characteristic 
of the orthodox Christian gentleman, William McKin¬ 
ley, and of the unorthodox Mark Hanna, to whom 
McKinley was pleased to turn irresistibly. There were 
already two Senators from Ohio: Foraker and Sher- 




William McKinley 











' - • 

















































































. 































MARK HANNA 


355 


man. Obviously, since there unfortunately could not 
be three Senators, one of the two must be disposed of 
if Mark Hanna’s wish were to be gratified. How 
could this be accomplished? How, indeed, but by 
advancing one of them to a higher position? This 
is what actually was done—almost, if not quite, 
with a vengeance. Sherman was offered the portfolio 
of Secretary of State; he accepted; thus McKinley 
was able to appoint Hanna as Senator in Sher¬ 
man’s stead. Then McKinley conferred with the under 
Secretary, leaving Sherman—out in the cold. Nat¬ 
urally, he objected and in a little time resigned his 
office. McKinley then maintained that Sherman’s fail¬ 
ing health was the reason why he was thus snubbed. 
Perhaps it was; but Sherman’s letter, written to a 
friend after his resignation, does not bear out that 
view: 

“At that time I regarded McKinley as a sincere 
and ardent friend. . . . When he urged me to accept 
the position of Secretary of State, I accepted with some 
reluctance and largely to promote the wishes of Mark 
Hanna. The result was that I lost the position both 
of Senator and Secretary, and I hear that both McKin¬ 
ley and Hanna are pitying me for failing memory and 
physical strength. I do not care for their pity and do 
not ask them any favor.” 

“Largely to promote the wishes of Mark Hanna I” 
The same Mark Hanna to whom, some years pre¬ 
viously, Sherman had written: “You have been a true 
friend, liberal, earnest and sincere, without any per¬ 
sonal selfish motive ... the soul of honor.” 

Anyhow, Mark Hanna’s wishes had undoubtedly 




356 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


been promoted. Was not this doggerel rhyme about 
him entirely justified? 

Up in the treetop triumphantly sat 
Old Mark Hanna. 

Says he, “There’s a winner right under my hat, 

Old Mark Hanna. 

Let no would-be President get in my way 

For the state of Ohio will do what I say, 

I’ve a grip on the boys and they’ve got to obey 
Old Mark Hanna.” 

From that time until McKinley’s death the “boys,” 
both in Ohio and in Congress, generally obeyed Mark 
Hanna. For at that time, as at some other times, 
most of the Senators 

made no pretense 
To intellectual eminence 
Or scholarship sublime. 

Instead, they nearly all recognized that their keenest, 
most incisive member was Mark Hanna, who all his 
life never cared for books—a fact which perhaps ex¬ 
plains why, as early as 1869, he had been elected a 
member of the Cleveland Board of Education. As 
Senator, indeed, his governmental functions were al¬ 
most as numerous as those of Pooh-Bah in Titipu: 
“First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, 
Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral,” and so on. 

One thing, among many others, Mark now wanted. 
His interests and the interests of big business in general 
were safe so long as McKinley was President; but 
Hanna desired the “mandate of the people” to make 




MARK HANNA 


357 


him feel fully at ease as Senator. To attain this, he 
would have to go on the stump—a thing he dreaded 
to do. McKinley courageously offered to help him 
prepare his speeches, but Mark gave up written 
speeches in disgust, went on the stump and—just 
talked. What he said probably lacked depth (in fact, 
his biographer says, “Everything that he had to say 
was on the top of his mind”), but his audiences doubt¬ 
less enjoyed his remarks all the more for that very 
reason. Proceeding thus, he soon developed the abil¬ 
ity, necessary for and epidemic among popular orators, 
to pour forth for more than an hour a steady torrent 
of words so pleasantly fluent, so imperturbably un¬ 
grammatical, so charmingly vulgar, so fascinatingly 
illogical, and so brilliantly platitudinous that his au¬ 
diences were almost invariably enraptured and, no 
doubt, spiritually benefited. How pleasant it must 
have been never to be made uncomfortable by an un¬ 
partisan remark, by the faintest sign of any statement 
that might possibly be interpreted as unpatriotic or 
cosmopolitan, or by the semblance of anything re¬ 
motely approaching a new or progressive idea ! “What 
a great speech! What a great man! What a com¬ 
forting hour this has been!” his hearers would murmur 
one to another, as they severally returned to their 
homes to commiserate their unfortunate neighbors, 
who had missed the rare opportunity of seeing and 
hearing one of the greatest men of the day. Hanna 
not only made speeches; he asseverated that his enemies 
were trying to defeat him by trading votes for other 
candidates. Thus injured innocence got an outraged 
public opinion on its side, and he was elected. Who 




358 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


) 


could be made to believe that one so much abused and 
insulted by enemies as poor Mark Hanna was, would 
ever have said privately that “No man in public office 
owes the public anything,” as the Democrats charged? 

Thus assured that he was the people’s choice, he 
spent his time gaining more power and influence in 
Congress. With the Spanish-American War he appar¬ 
ently had little to do, except to play the part of Jona¬ 
than to his David. McKinley, much worried by the 
problems of war, found Hanna a tower of strength in 
those times. Chauncey Depew one day found the 
President in a very gloomy frame of mind; but “when 
he . . . caressingly placed his hands upon Mr. Han¬ 
na’s shoulder his countenance assumed all its old-time 
happiness and confidence, and he uttered with a depth 
of feeling and affection which no words can describe 
the word ‘Mark.’ ” And still, one cannot be too cer¬ 
tain that Hanna was merely quiescent and subservient 
during the war; for that struggle involved many events 
and possibilities that must have touched him in his 
tenderest spot—his business interests. At least one in¬ 
disputable fact rears its head amid a host of vague sur¬ 
mises. Among the documents printed with the Peace 
Treaty, at the end of the war, there was this dispatch 
from Luzon: “Cortes family, representing wealthy, 
educated families of Manila, implore you in name hu¬ 
manity and Christianity not to desert them, and to ob¬ 
tain annexation Philippines to America.” This mes¬ 
sage was not addressed, as one would naturally expect 
from the distinctly Presidential flavor of the composi¬ 
tion, to President McKinley; it was sent to Mark 
Hanna. Precisely how had it become known, even in 




MARK HANNA 


359 


remote Manila, that the proper way to obtain results 
in America was to get in touch with Hanna rather than 
with McKinley? 

Whatever the answer may be—no definite answer 
can be given—Hanna staunchly supported the Presi¬ 
dent in all war measures, and both of them continued 
to favor imperialistic policies with steadily increasing 
approval. Might not (so they probably speculated) 
Cuba and the Philippines be much in need, among 
other American business products, of steel and 
iron? 

In 1898 Hanna “milked the country,” in his own 
words, in order that it might remain Republican; a 
Democratic Congress would have been even more un¬ 
desirable, if such a thing were possible, at that time 
than at any other. It is true that some of the most 
prolific Republican kine ceased chewing their cuds of 
contentment, and protested rather strongly, by vocifer¬ 
ous mooing, prancing about, and flirting of tails, 
against losing so much precious fluid; but they finally 
submitted when they considered how much better it 
was to lose their milk than it would have been to lose 
their skins. Hanna also distributed patronage liber¬ 
ally, though occasionally he found it tiresome. Once 
he wrote Foraker thus about a persistent applicant: 
“Everything has been arranged to suit the old cuss, and 
I hope you and I are through with him.” He was 
opposed to Civil Service reform—and why not? Was 
he a reformer? With the best and worst elements of 
his party he cooperated, in the interests of harmony 
in the “Grand Old Party,” whose private creed, during 
McKinley’s time and frequently thereafter, seems to 




360 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


have been, “Imperialism and harmony, now and for¬ 
ever, one and inseparable.” 

The campaign of 1900 was largely a repetition of 
1896. The Convention would have been “too har¬ 
monious for anything but words,” as someone re¬ 
marked, had it not been for a comparatively young man 
with flashing eyes, bristling teeth, and tremendous 
energy, who at that time began his life-long policy of 
occasionally twanging a painfully inharmonious string, 
much to the dismay of his fellow members in the 
Republican orchestra. Neither McKinley nor Hanna 
desired that Roosevelt should be the Vice-Presidential 
candidate, for the all-sufficing reason that he was 
regarded as unsa'fe and unsound from the standpoint 
of the business interests. McKinley had remarked 
with vigor to Foraker before the Convention met, “I 
hope you will not allow the Convention to be stam¬ 
peded to Roosevelt.” Hanna’s language was even 
more vigorous. “By God, Teddy, you know,” said he 
to Roosevelt, “that there is nothing in this country 
which can compel a man to run for an office who doesn’t 
want it”; for Roosevelt had told Hanna that he did 
not wish the nomination, and wanted to know what to 
do if he should be nominated willy-nilly. But when 
Roosevelt found out that “the McKinley people” were 
unitedly opposed to him as a candidate, his fighting 
spirit was pricked and he decided to win the nomina¬ 
tion—and did win it. And that was a bad omen for 
Mark Hanna. Nevertheless, the present was safe and, 
despite the anti-imperialist cry of the Democrats, the 
country as a whole seemed to take more interest 
in the “full dinner-pail.” Bryan, indeed, insinuated 




MARK HANNA 


361 


that the Republicans would not dare to educate the Fili¬ 
pinos, lest they might learn to read the Declaration of 
Independence. But Bryan, who again made the welkin 
ring with his infinitely varied permutations and com¬ 
binations of Webster, was beaten worse than before. 
Hanna, however, took no chances. Once again, as 
Chairman of the National Committee, he planned the 
campaign with superb generalship, poured out his own 
fortune, and, what was better, made others pour out 
their fortunes too. 

Ill 

Until this time, Mark Hanna and McKinley had 
been very intimate. “I recall,” Hanna wrote after 
McKinley’s death, “many Sunday evening home con¬ 
certs. Everyone was singing, and he would call for 
‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ and ‘Lead, Kindly Light.’ 
The radiance on his face when he sang those old favor¬ 
ite hymns as if his whole soul was in it is to me a sacred 
memory picture of William McKinley. ... In the 
calm serenity of the night’s quiet hours, we felt the tie 
of our life’s friendship growing stronger as we simply 
sat and puffed and looked into each other’s faces.” 

After the election of 1900, however, his relations 
with McKinley became a trifle strained. Perhaps 
McKinley, thinking that the second verdict of the 
people in his favor augured well, was beginning to be 
a little—just a little—too independent. He had hesi¬ 
tated long before appointing Hanna as Chairman of 
the National Committee in 1900, but finally appointed 
him. Hanna objected, in a letter to McKinley, against 
allowing a Republican, who had employed Democrats, 






36 2 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


to stay in a certain position; for the employment of 
Democrats was, to Hanna’s mind, if not quite a sin 
against the Holy Ghost, at least a sin against the Holy 
Republican Party. McKinley replied with such an un¬ 
satisfactory letter that Mark Hanna threw it angrily 
on the floor. Furthermore, McKinley was not very 
eager that Hanna should go on the stump in 1900. 
Possibly that acute brain of his may actually have sur¬ 
mised that Hanna’s reputation throughout parts of 
the country was by this time coming to be not wholly 
savory. The caricaturists were largely responsible for 
arousing the suspicion that Mark Hanna had much— 
perhaps a little too much—power over the President. 
One cartoon, shortly after the election of 1900, de¬ 
picted Hanna as a tall, robust Englishman, with 
McKinley at his side in the shape of a nice little boy 
wearing knee breeches—the caption of the picture was 
“Buttons.” So it came about that McKinley sent a 
messenger to Hanna, to whom a gentle hint was given 
that it might be better if he did not go on the stump. 
But Hanna guessed that the man was merely a go- 
between, forced him to admit that he was, and then 
said: “Return to Washington and tell the President 
that God hates a coward.” After McKinley’s death, 
Hanna said in a speech about him: “As to the quality 
of his courage—I never knew a man more fearless.” 
He went on the stump in the West, McKinley or no 
McKinley, and drew enormous crowds, for his reputa¬ 
tion there was still almost untainted. He talked as 
usual without preparation, but easily, slang and with 
vigor. Once the platform on which he was speaking 
broke down. “This must have been a Democratic plat- 




MARK HANNA 


363 


form,” he said, as he scrambled up. He made votes 
that day. 

In 1901 President McKinley was assassinated, at 
the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, by a Polish 
anarchist named Czolgosz. Mark Hanna at once 
hurried to Buffalo, but was not allowed to see the 
President until a few hours before the end. McKin¬ 
ley’s thoughts, during his last days, wandered variously 
to his wife, to his God and to Mark Hanna. He 
would frequently ask, “Is Mark there?” but was not 
permitted to see him. 

In a speech delivered a year or so later, on the occa¬ 
sion of the unveiling of a memorial statue to McKinley, 
Hanna said: “The truest of the life of William 
McKinley was built and erected stone by stone as he 
lived his noble useful life until it touched the sky and 
was finished by the hands of angels.” This long sen¬ 
tence was presumably punctuated by tears, if not by 
commas; however that may be, it is quite certain that, 
without Hanna’s services as general architect, carpen¬ 
ter and stone-mason, the angels would have had a 
much more difficult task. 

After the President’s death, and while the country 
was still dominated by two emotions—horror at the 
assassination and curiosity about the spelling and pro¬ 
nunciation of the assassin’s name—Mark Hanna 
broke down and cried like a child. Perhaps he no 
longer believed that God could not love a coward. 
Perhaps, however, he was merely thinking of what his 
position under the new President would be. Could he 
control him as he had controlled McKinley and most 
of McKinley’s advisers and counselors? Hanna had 




3 6 4 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


downed many ordinary political bulls by simply twist¬ 
ing their horns until they bellowed for mercy; but this 
new bull, just coming into power as the leader of the 
Republican herd, had no ordinary horns; instead, he 
chanced to have rapidly sprouting antlers. As every¬ 
one knows, he developed later into a full-grown Bull 
Moose. 

When the McKinley funeral train left Buffalo for 
Washington, among its occupants were the new Presi¬ 
dent, Mark Hanna, and that inveterate political busy¬ 
body, H. H. Kohlsaat, who had set his heart upon 
bringing Hanna and Roosevelt together. Hanna, who 
was feeling very bitter, growled out: “I told William 
McKinley it was a mistake to nominate that wild man 
at Philadelphia. . . . Now look, that damned cow¬ 
boy is President of the United States!” Mr. Kohlsaat 
endeavored to make Hanna see that Roosevelt had 
had no desire to be “shot into the Presidency”; but, 
failing in this attempt, he tried a subtler scheme. He 
lurched into Roosevelt’s car, where he found that the 
President was also in a peevish state of mind. “Hanna 
treats me like a boy. He calls me ‘Teddy/ ” he 
snarled. Then Mr. Kohlsaat suggested a carefully 
thought out plan to Roosevelt: he must invite Hanna 
to dine with him, put him in a good humor, and then 
boldly lay his cards on the table. “Then,” said Mr. 
Kohlsaat, “put your hands, palms up, on the table. If 
he puts his hands in his pockets, you are a goner, but 
if he puts his hands in yours, you can bet on him 
for life.” At first Roosevelt demurred but finally 
acquiesced, and the happy Mr. Kohlsaat retired to 
a private corner to observe how his plan worked. 




MARK HANNA 


3^5 


Shortly, he saw a waiter whisper in Hanna’s ear; he 
hesitated, then nodded his head, arose and limped over 
to Mr. Kohlsaat and grumbled: “That damned cow¬ 
boy wants me to take supper with him, alone. Damn 
him!” Nevertheless, Hanna soon disappeared into 
Roosevelt’s car, leaving Mr. Kohlsaat to fidget for an 
hour and a half. Then Hanna came limping back; his 
round face broadened into an expansive grin, he 
chuckled, “He’s a pretty good little cuss, after all!” 
and proceeded to tell what had happened. “Putting 
my hands into his, I said: ‘I will be your friend on two 
conditions: first, that you carry out McKinley’s poli¬ 
cies, as you promised.’ Roosevelt answered: ‘All right, 
I will.’ ‘Second, that you quit calling me “old man.” 
If you don’t, I’ll call you “Teddy.” ’ ‘All right. You 
call me “Teddy” and I’ll call you “old man.” ’ ” And 
from that time on, the funeral party resembled an 
Irish wake. 

Among other things, Mark told Roosevelt that he 
would work hard to make the new administration a 
success; for, after all, it was still Republican. Roose¬ 
velt respected, perhaps feared (even a Bull Moose may 
have fear) Hanna enough to discuss with him impor¬ 
tant political policies. “I have consulted with you and 
relied on your judgment more than I have done with 
any other man,” wrote the President to Hanna on May 
29, 1903—when he had been President more than a 
year and a half. Apparently, they worked more or less 
hand in hand. It was certain that they did so in the 
case of the Panama Canal, for which Hanna was chief 
sponsor, and for which he spoke before Congress until 
his knees gave out, although his tongue was still strong. 





366 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


He also aided the President in the coal strike in 1902, 
and succeeded in persuading the anthracite miners not 
to join in the strike. “It is one of the proudest mo¬ 
ments in my life,” he remarked in the amphitheater at 
Chautauqua, New York, on August 9, 1902, “that I 
can state from this rostrum to such an audience as this, 
that the men stood by their word.” Whereupon the 
audience broke into thunderous applause—it was, to be 
sure, a Chautauqua audience. But to the President he 
wrote, among other things, “Confidentially, I saw 
Mr. Morgan and I also saw Mr. Mitchell (the public 
knows nothing about that).” As a result of such con¬ 
ferences, the strike was ended. It was then eminently 
proper for Roosevelt to say, as he did, “Well, Uncle 
Mark’s work has borne fruit.” Hanna also favored 
the work of the Civic Federation, which, he said, was 
merely trying to apply the Golden Rule to industrial 
disputes—by which he may have meant that the em¬ 
ployers generally got the gold and the laborers the 
rule. 

And yet, while on the surface things seemed to be 
going smoothly between him and Roosevelt, actually 
it was not so. For Mark Hanna was thinking—think¬ 
ing. He had been in many respects President already 
in power; now why not be President in fact? Was he 
not McKinley’s logical successor, and was not Roose¬ 
velt wickedly beginning to act as though he was going 
to sever the umbilicus that bound together the Siamese 
twins, Republicanism and trusts? Should he permit 
such an infamous deed? Never! Those penetrating 
brown eyes of his partially closed their lids until there 
seemed to lurk in them a suggestion of something 




MARK HANNA 


367 


malignant; the firm lines around the large mouth and 
strong chin became firmer; and the short, stocky form, 
now becoming somewhat pudgy with age, squared itself 
again with all the vigor of youth. Few men, perhaps 
none, had crossed his path with impunity; should this 
young reformer, swept fortuitously into the Presiden¬ 
tial chair, tear down what he had spent his life in 
building? Roosevelt should learn that Mark Hanna 
was not Tom Platt nor Matt Quay! 

Had not a greater power than Roosevelt himself 
interfered, no one can say what would have happened. 
The President, with his almost cosmic versatility, was 
of course becoming more and more formidable; but 
Hanna was also formidable. His political experience 
was greater than Roosevelt’s; he was backed by titanic 
business interests and by the “machine”; furthermore, 
he was supported by many people who believed that 
McKinley’s death had made Hanna the natural suc¬ 
cessor. Hanna eventually became placed in such a 
position that he was forced to declare his views pub¬ 
licly; he therefore stated that he was opposed to the 
adoption of resolutions by Ohio’s State Convention 
favoring Roosevelt as the Presidential nominee. 
Naturally, this caused the antagonism of the two men, 
long smoldering, to burst into flame, although they 
tried to behave well publicly in deference to that great 
god—Harmony. Hanna, indeed, assured Roosevelt 
that he was not a candidate for President; but he did 
so with significant ill grace, and he refused to make his 
assurance public—he was too wary for that. An open 
rupture between them very nearly came many times, 
although Republican Harmony still prevailed out- 




3 68 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


wardly. Then came an even greater harmonizing 
power than Republican Harmony—death. 

IV 

Mark Hanna had always been an extraordinarily 
strong and vigorous man, but he had worked with 
quenchless energy and had never taken exercise; also, 
while generally abstemious in food and almost a tee¬ 
totaler, he had a gourmandish fondness for sweets and, 
like McKinley, was an inveterate smoker of strong 
cigars which were manufactured especially for his own 
use. Those massive knees of his, which had never bent 
in obeisance either to God or man, were at last forced 
to tremble and shake because of chalky deposits in 
them. Baths at a French resort in 1899 had failed to 
give him permanent relief. In the early weeks of 1904 
he was almost constantly ill, and on February 3 his 
complaint was diagnosed as typhoid fever. Roosevelt 
called to inquire about Hanna at his hotel in Washing¬ 
ton, and he sent the President a feebly scribbled note: 
“Fou touched a tender spot, old man, when you called 
personally.” Roosevelt had indeed touched more than 
one tender spot in Mark Hanna. He became steadily 
worse. Once, as his wife sat by his bedside, he seized 
her hand and said, “Old lady, you and I are on the 
home-stretch.” Precisely what home may he have had 
in mind? He was never prone to be hypocritical in 
religious matters, at least. His last thoughts were 
characteristically concerned with his enemies. As he 
was lapsing into the unconsciousness that preceded his 
death, the nurse at his side became transformed in his 





MARK HANNA 


369 


imagination into one of those enemies. “Haven’t I 
always treated you well?” he querulously muttered. 
“Of course, Senator,” she replied. Then came his last 
words, ‘Well, why do you go about the country abus¬ 
ing me?” Complete coma followed, and he died on 
February 15, 1904. 

Possibly it was appropriate that one whose life had 
been spent in political intrigue should have had a 
funeral distinguished by that element. At a Cabinet 
meeting the question was discussed as to whether 
Roosevelt should attend the final services in Ohio; it 
was decided that he should not go, for such an action 
might be misconstrued as hypocrisy. Amid all the im¬ 
mediate public tributes paid Mark Hanna, including a 
glowing one from Grover Cleveland, the voice of 
Roosevelt was silent. The body was not allowed to lie 
in state in Washington; but a memorial service was 
held in the Senate Chamber, and was attended by the 
President, the Cabinet and all official Washington. 
The chaplain, Edward Everett Hale, delivered an 
address that was both eloquent and inspiring; the Grid¬ 
iron Club Quartet sang, with great tenderness and 
effect, “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” which caused a gen¬ 
eral display of emotion, especially among those present 
who were most indebted to Mark Hanna. The funeral 
in Cleveland was an occasion not less important than a 
national holiday. Early on that day enormous crowds 
surged through the streets, and when the obsequies 
began the cars on the line owned by Hanna stood still 
for five minutes as a token of respect. The anthracite 
coal miners of Pennsylvania were ordered to stop work 
at noon on that day in reverence for his memory; and 




370 


STRENUOUS AMERICANS 


we are told that “the miners so heartily favored 
the plan that they did not report at all for work in the 
morning.” 

On the day after Mark Hanna’s decease, a promi¬ 
nent newspaper displayed, side by side with the fulsome 
account of his death, these headlines: “Fight on in 
Ohio over Senatorship. Dick Objects to Taking the 
Short and Giving Herrick the Long Term.” Perhaps 
the spirit of the staunch old veteran of a hundred simi¬ 
lar affrays may have hovered near and smiled grimly 
(if spirits can smile) as it viewed the familiar scene; 
perhaps it may smile grimly again when, in the whirli¬ 
gig of time, some reincarnated McKinley will sit in the 
White House, and the mantle of Elijah Mark Hanna 
will fall upon Elisha—whom? 

MARK HANNA 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Croly, Herbert, Marcus Alonzo Hanna. His Life and Work. 

Macmillan Co., New York, 1912. 

Foraker, J. B., Notes on a Busy Life. Two volumes. Stewart 
& Kidd Co., Cincinnati, 1916. 

Kohlsaat, H. H., From AlcKinley to Harding. Charles 
Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1923. 

McKinley Memorial Addresses. Tippecanoe Club Co., Cleve¬ 
land, 1913. 

Olcott, Charles S., The Life of William McKinley. Two 
volumes. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, 1916. 

Rhodes, James Ford, The McKinley and Roosevelt Adminis¬ 
trations. Macmillan Co., New York, 1922. 


THE END 









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